MMX Maverick Obsoletion
by R.I. Sabi
Summary: 24 hours after a mass maverick attack, X, Axl and Zero are reassigned the same sector for further investigation. One strange discovery leads to another; mavericks that aren't out to destroy the hunters sent after them, old archives about a plot that may endanger the future, impossibilities becoming reality. All after finding a uniquely designed reploid of unknown origin.
1. Chapter 1

It was one of those days around the office. Everyone seemed to be busy with something when they didn't want to be working, and those who had nothing to do wanted something to do. It was just after a massive maverick attack, one of the odd ones the Maverick Hunters had been watching closely for about a week. It was odd to the analyzers that even the most wild minded of mavericks were targeting something with extreme prejudice, and whatever it was, it kept eluding them, and the Hunters. Even half minded mavericks were trying to find the same thing as the completely mindless ones were and that was causing problems when the two groups started to clash.

Down the hall strode one of the highest ranking hunters in the facility. Red and white armor, cubic shoulder plates bearing the letter 'Z' and long blonde hair following behind him from the back of his helmet, almost hiding his signature Z-saber. He famous Zero, arms crossed, walked down the hall, not too happy with his reassignment for the day but it beat doing paperwork. He was off to retrieve his two other partners in the process, as Signas had also reassigned them for the day as well.

For the most part, Zero continued to walk down towards one of the offices, many other reploids running past him with their arms full of papers making sure not to bump into him or anyone. Once he had one of his destination doors in his sights, he let his arms drop down to his side, pausing a few feet in front of the door to let another reploid late for something dash right past him. Putting his hand on the handle, Zero opened the door, a quiet squeaking following him as he walked in, and shut the door behind him.

In the small room was a desk, with an enormous arc of piled paperwork craftily made on it, a waste basket some eight feet away from the front of the desk, and something in a swivel chair, quietly snoring away as it used the fortified mass of paper as a shelter for his head. Zero looked around the mess of a desk to find the navy sharp shooter himself, asleep amidst his work. The blond hunter just shook his head.

"Axl…"

"…mrph…right between the eyes…" He muttered in his dreams.

"Aaaaxl…"

"I could hit that from five hundred yards…"

"AXL!"

"I GOT-" _'Thud'_

With a swift motion, a confetti attack of paperwork now finding it's was to the floor, as Axl did with his balance, Zero walked over towards him and gave him a serious look. He quickly shot up to his feet, readjusting his helmet accordingly as if nothing ever happened. Zero glared at him for a good few seconds before walking back towards the door, Axl following him with a gaze of innocence.

"Come on we've been reassigned this morning." Zero explained, going for the door handle again.

Hearing that lifted Axl's mood a bit. "So does that mean I don't have to this mass of Signas' homework?"

"No, you still have to do paperwork like the rest of us." Zero answered, waiting for the younger Hunter to leave his office space.

"Aww…" moaned Axl, leaving his room in a mild slump to join the usual madness outside. "It's worse than having nothing to do."

Zero rolled his eyes as they went to gather X from his office. If it wasn't one thing, it was another with Axl.

"Look," He began, nearing his friend's office. "X and I don't like it any more than you but you need to take the responsibility to do it. We don't need Signas on our backs about that, he's on us about everything else that goes on around here. Just do it, and get it over with, follow my example, and X's."

Zero was still talking to Axl when he opened the door to X's office, not paying attention to what was inside. Axl on the other hand, started to giggle under his breath at the sight he saw inside. Zero glared at him again, and Axl was quite intent on pointing into the room. Zero followed Axl's direction and saw something that just made him facepalm.

X, at his own desk, pen in hand and face down in his work, sleeping away and completely unaware that his two partners had walked in the room at all. It was clear he was dead asleep, dreaming about something and muttering about it as he dozed away. Zero couldn't make out much of it due to X breathing into his one arm. The only bits of understandable sentences in X's sleep rambles was something about paper shredders and coffee stains. Zero went and shook the blue Hunter's shoulder, waking him up in a moment or so. As Axl did, he jolted awake, sending papers off the side of his desk, but not falling completely flat on his face in the process. The expression on his face made Zero wonder what in the name of reploids it was about.

"Do you…need water or coffee or something…?"

"No…no I'm fine…just weird dreams." X said, rubbing the sleepiness away from his face. "What's going on?"

"Signas reassigned us this morning back to that abandoned site we hit yesterday." Zero explained, ignoring Axl's snickering in the background. "Apparently something is jamming the satellite observation over that area."

"I thought that place was swept clean for any run away mavericks?" X questioned, getting to his feet.

Axl shrugged his amusement off. "Maybe we missed one?"

"Or it's something else…"Zero added in. "Anyway, we're supposed to head there again, briefing room for a quick explanation and such."

With a non X joined his fellow reploids in the walk to the briefing room, where the familiar navigator Alia was busy making sure that everyone was accounted for and listening. Once the three walked into the room, the navigator began her briefing, leaving everyone else to get settled within the time her first sentence was finished being spoken.

"Yesterday an odd maverick attack broke out in this abandoned site." She began, pulling up the visuals on a monitor. "Today as a routine check to make sure the area was once again safe began, our satellites were unable to pick up any audio or visual signal. Instead another odd signal was jamming the satellites, but only to the extent of the area in question. We believe it is some sort of cloaking field, and due to the maverick attack that happened only yesterday, we're sending in X, Zero and Axl to investigate and take down the field."

"And hopefully not find anything…"

"Please hold all questions until the end of the briefing and remember to raise your hands…" Alia commented to the whispering individual in the room. "Unfortunately, you three will be without a navigator as the field blocks any outgoing and incoming signal. You will have to be teleported just outside the area, and find the source on your own. After the field is gone, we can resume contact and teleport you back here."

"Under stood, we'll be on our way immediately." X replied with a nod.

He and his other two followed him into the transceiver room where other navigators were ready to transport the trio out into the fray. X stood calm, looking at Zero who seemed to be facepalming at Axl's clear anxiousness to get out of HQ. Shaking his head at them both, it was only a few moments more until the three were taken away back to the aftermath of yesterday's maverick attack.

The entire area was dusty, taking on a colouration completely composed of shades of grey and sepia. Seeing the sight of it made X just a bit depressed but now wasn't the time, there was work to be done. X, Zero and Axl all reported in just before the expected radio jamming would occur just as they entered the hot zone. Having been here only the day before, each of them knew their way around what buildings were left standing.

"Alright, stay close." X instructed, receiving an affirmative nod from his partners.

Axl immediately went into hover mode and started checking the roof's and higher levels of any buildings he came across, as X went to the ground and middle floors while Zero took any basements. Outside, they looked under any mass of debris, X looking away painfully from any maverick body that may have been remaining from the battle yesterday. The reminder of it wasn't something he needed to think about. Zero wasn't too far off from him, occasionally looking over at X to make sure that he was alright about revisiting an aftermath of a battle so soon.

What seemed like 'one more building' to the three lasted for hours. Looking under, over, inside what could have been a secret room or opening, resulted in nothing but more dust and their bunny friends being found. Zero was feeling a bit frustrated, throwing things over a little harder than the last thing, and X kept looking around outside, trying to avoid finding any other machine remains he didn't want to see.

"I'm really starting to miss nav support right now…" Zero complained, kicking a piece of twisted metal over. "I think we call it a day for now. We've been at this for five hours and have searched everything."

X put his hand to his chin in thought, feeling that this was also taking much longer than it should have been taking. "I feel like we're missing something…or overlooking a detail."

Zero looked around once X said the word 'missing'. "Like overlooking that Axl is gone…"

X snapped from his thoughts and took a quick look around. "Great he got sidetracked again…"

The two started walking off in a direction they silently agreed was somewhere to start searching for the missing hunter. Calling his name to the wind and retracing their steps, Axl wasn't to be found. Zero grew more annoyed and all X could really do was shake his head.

"When we find him I'm going to-"

Zero's complaining was interrupted by a scream in the distance. Immediately snapping into battle mode, X and Zero rushed off towards the source of the nose, fearing Axl may of found trouble, as he usually did. The blonde hunter clenched his Z-saber handle tightly, running just ahead of X who began to charge his buster as their neared the location that the scream had come from. Just as Zero took one flying leap over more debris, he found Axl on the ground, pinned by some other reploid. X soon followed, seeing the same thing, but instead of leaping to attack it like Zero, he stopped, grabbing Zero's arm to stop him as well from attacking what had Axl on the ground. Zero looked back at X, wondering why he had stopped him, and then looked back at Axl, taking the entire situation in.

Axl, on his back, was looking up at a small reploid that was standing on his chest, looking at him with a curious look. It bore silver armor with dark blue trim, but it mostly looked dust coloured thanks to all the mess outside. The reploid wasn't very big, now looking at X and Zero, almost startled by their appearances. The oddest thing about the reploid was, it wasn't a human, it was a raptor; The dino kind of raptor, no bigger than a medium sized dog.

"Uh…Axl…explain." Zero half demanded half asked, looking at the odd machine.

"Well…I was looking around in an air vent and heard something so I decided to follow it. I followed the sounds out here. I thought I lost what I was following when this little thing pounced me out of the blue."

X started to walk closer to the odd dino, slowly as to not startle it. The raptor watched him and backed off, taking steps back and off of Axl. Axl immediately sat up and looked at the raptor.

"It didn't attack me really, so I don't think it's a maverick." Axl said.

"Not all mavericks are wild killers." Zero replied, crossing his arms once again. "It could be maverick."

"Zero, I don't think it is." X told him. "Axl was alone, pinned, it could of attacked him easily."

"I'm trying to ignore that fact when it's something this small." Zero groaned as he looked in another direction for a moment.

"I think it's kinda cute." Axl commented, patting the strange mechanical reptile on the head and hearing an odd voice come from it. "It sounds female…so I think it's a girl."

"Axl I don't care what you think it is." Zero interjected adamantly. "It's a strange reploid in the leftover mess of a maverick attack."

The raptor slowly walked towards X, who was now sitting on the ground, trying to be friendly towards this stranger. The dino sat in front of X, tilting her head at him curiously. He held his hand out to her and she sniffed it like a new puppy, finding X to be safe. X put his hand on the dino's head, examining her. He noticed that the armor was worn, and that on the shoulder plate, an inscription was etched in.

"C-H-R-O…dash…I can't quite make out the rest…it looks like the word Echo…" X said.

The raptor seemed to perk up when X spoke the word 'Echo'. Axl stood up, dusting his armor off as X took a look at the raptor further, noticing some armor damage, nicks in the metal and the dust stains on the armor. Zero also looked at the dino, wondering about where she had come from and why she was in the sort of area in the first place when his thoughts were interrupted by the most outrageous question from Axl.

"Can we keep her?"

"NO…we CAN'T keep a random prehistoric based reptilian reploid we find in the wake of a maverick attack." Zero blurt out with as much adamancy as he possibly could. "X would you-"

"Awww, aren't you sweet!" X told the raptor as she was snuggling up to his hand that seemed keen on petting her.

Zero could only groan and hit himself in the face with his own hand. "X you can't be serious."

Axl had an idea about this strange reploid. "Well maybe she could help us find that jamming transmitter."

Zero paused for a second, thinking that may have been a possibility. The dino seemed to recognize the word and got up and started wiggle walking and hopping over metal beams in a specific direction. She leapt on top of a heap of what was now a dead building, and looked back at the other three, expecting them to follow. Axl looked at Zero with a 'see I told you so' gesture, in which received a glare that spoke the words 'shut it'.

"Right…we're going to follow a strange reploid into some odd territory that we know nothing about." Zero thought out loud. "Axl, if anything goes wrong this is your idea."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes of Sabi R:**

Wow...so many hits in one day...anyway hi, this is my first MMX fic. I forgot to edit this part into the first chapter. Anyway, I'm going to tell you know, for your own knowledge, be it good or bad, there is going to be some mild ZeroX in this thing. Don't bother flamming me in PM's about how much that doesn't work because it A: won't change my mind, B: to me makes sense. Anyway [you'll note I say that word a lot] if anyone would like to see images of any of the other characters featured in the story, please do PM me, I like sharing my pictures. This doesn't take in any particular time line in the X games, just sometime after Axl showed up. Because I like Axl. Anyway, please enjoy my fic, I will have chapter 3 up sometime soon. :3

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><p>X, Zero and Axl made their way through the mess of metal and concrete, following the strange prehistoric reptile of a reploid lead them who knew where. Axl seemed to be having fun as he watched the small thing dart in all kinds of places. Even with her size she managed to make the other hunters almost break out into a full run to keep up. Zero kept thinking that this was all but a good idea, and when X looked at him he could see it plain on his face. Something about that raptor was bugging him.<p>

"Don't you find it odd that this reploid is here after a maverick attack…with almost everything decimated as well." Zero said to X with a hint of caution in his voice. "Nothing was picked up after we took leave yesterday on the scanners either."

X was starting to see Zero's point, understanding his weariness. "Is it possible she was missed in the evacuation?"

"Even so, with the damage this place has now, that thing shouldn't have survived in the condition it's in."

X gave Zero an unpleasant frown. "Please stop calling her 'it', it makes you sound heartless."

"Fine…" Zero said with a roll of his eyes. "She, could be the reason for the odd maverick attack patterns. If you think about it, if she was there for each attack that's gone on in the past two months, which leaves the question as to why mavericks of all kinds are after a robotic dinosaur."

"Yes but that's only if she was the target at all." X replied. "Something eluding two month's worth of maverick attacks in that kind of condition isn't likely to happen at all."

"Doesn't mean it can't."

The pair's discussion was stopped by Axl shouting something across the way at them, who had apparently slowed their pace as they spoke to each other. "HEY! The raptor found something!"

Picking up pace, the red and blue hunter caught up with their energetic friend, who was standing outside a half buried building with only a part of the doorway clear of any debris. The rest of it looked like gravel and sand had taken a land slide into the doorway that now had no door. Axl leaned forward, looking at the raptor's eyes that seemed to glow a pale yellow colour. The impulsive gunboy swung himself right into the half buried building, ending up near where the dino was. X followed in with Axl, having Zero check back outside to be sure everything was clear before following.

Inside was dark, but there was the odd light to help light the way. The three of them looked around, finding that the inside of the building looked like some old lab. Zero quickly noticed a light, following a line down further into the building, like some kind of pulse. X was busy looking at the old equipment that wasn't even good for collecting dust. Axl watched to see where the little dino was going, noticing that the floor was covered in some fine material, soon identified as ash and soot.

"This place has been buried like this for ages…" Zero deducted, looking around at some of the desks.

"No wonder we couldn't find a place like this…we were set on looking for something that was destroyed yesterday." Axl said, making sure he was aware of where the dino reploid was at all times.

X couldn't help but get a bit distracted by the frail leftovers of papers that disintegrated in his fingers when he touched them. "It must have been a victim of a fire, or maybe even a maverick attack years ago."

"Hey, there's some stairs here guys." Axl announced, still watching their new guide.

X and Zero took a look down the pitch dark stairwell, quickly following behind Axl in hopes of not tripping over each other or worse; having the stairs crash under their weight. As the three of them moved along down each step, using the railing as their blind man's guide, it seemed to go a long way down from where the surface was. With Axl being led by only a metal bar and a pair of glowing pale yellow eyes, he made sure not to make any abrupt stops.

After what seemed like a good half hour of walking, a dim white light on a badly wired overhang showed the way into a wide open room. Axl was forced to stop for a moment, turning to let everyone know that the stairs they were using had been brutally smashed off by a steel support beam. Axl didn't think twice about jumping down, his boots splashing into a small puddle as he landed. Two more splashes behind him and Zero and X followed, looking around the room.

As dimly lit as the last one, the three of them saw a large generator in the middle of the room with large hose-like wires coming in and out of it. Most of them were frayed apart by time, whereas some looked to have been cut off cleanly some time ago. A few remained connected however, and these ones seemed less dust stained than the rest of the machine. The three of them split up a bit to take more of a look around. Axl hovered around the generator, trying to determine how big the thing entirely was and X went looking around for where his dino friend had gone. Zero took to one of the desks that seemed the least amount damaged, going through the drawers to find papers that seemed intact for the most part.

X found their dino guide at one of the machines hooked up to the generator. The blue reploid looked at what the dino was doing, noticing one of her arms was not attached to the machine. It almost looked like some kind of buster, however it wasn't acting like one. He noticed some sort of pulsating light on the side of her arm. After a moment, the dino removed the tool, which seemed to be some sort of extraction and replacement gun. The raptor seemed to groan at the machine in disappointment, which X found a little cute. She looked up at X and pointed to the machine.

"Fiiiiiiix." She said, her voice sounding like it was on some sort of echoing reverb effect.

X seemed to understand what was going on. "Zero, this reploid's function is to repair machinery. I think she was trying to fix this when something went wrong, causing the jamming."

"Yeah it does seem to be the source of the problem." Axl confirmed. "But why fix something this old?"

"I'm not sure…it looks like a communication hub of some kind." X looked down at the repair reploid. "Are you trying to contact someone?"

The raptor nodded. "Find."

"X, I don't think that reploid is a repair bot." Zero said, coming from the desk he had just been searching with a file folder in hand and a page in another. "Can you make out what that says on the top of this page?"

X looked at it, and he couldn't see much in the dim light, and the fact that the paper was rather faded didn't help much. After focusing for a bit he saw some lettering, one that he had seen just earlier before. They were the same letters as etched into the other reploid's faded armor that still seemed to be intent on fixing the communication machine.

"Paper files on this reploid? No one's used that method in decades have they?" Axl asked, wanting to be sure he was right.

"There was a couple of old data discs in the desk as well that I picked up, but everything is so old I don't know if it will be any good looking at." Zero said, putting the sheet back into the file. "Whatever…she is, it's something more than to repair machines, that's for sure."

"Then we might want to take her back to base for analysis…or at least to get fixed up." X stated, looking back at the raptor in question.

"Signas will probably throw a fit if he finds out we brought something back with us." Zero muttered with his hand against his face.

Axl immediately perked up. "So we ARE keeping her—Ow…"

"We need to turn this machine off still." Zero interrupted, brushing his hand against his armor. "After that, then we can get back to base and figure out what to do with…her."

Everyone seemed in agreement with Zero's plan, X, finding that the easiest way was probably to ask, walked over to the raptor and knelt down to her level with a friendly expression on his face.

"I'm sorry, but, we need to turn the machine off." He explained. "Do you know how to shut it down?"

The reptilian didn't seem too happy about the idea of turning the very thing she was trying to fix off, and X saw it clear as day on the dino's face. He pet her head, smiling at her reassuringly.

"We're going to take you with us after, and maybe we can find who you're looking for." He said.

The raptor seemed to think about the idea at first, but the nodded at X eventually. She started to wander over to another part of the room, one shadowed over in the darkness. The small reploid took her arm, changing it into her special tool again and putting it into a socket on the wall. The other three watched the generator whir and sputter dust from it's vent as it began to slow down, eventually coming to a stop. Soon enough the lights went out as well and everything was left to complete darkness.

"Maybe you should've asked after we were outside…" Axl commented, trying to make his way around in the dark.

"This is odd…"

"Axl hasn't tripped over you yet Zero?"

"Hey I'm not that much of a klutz."

"If the generator that was producing the odd interference is off…why don't we have navigator contact yet?"

Everyone went quiet for a minute, trying their own radios and found out that Zero was correct. As their eyes adjusted to the dark, the looked at one and other for ideas, wondering what else could have been causing the strange jamming. It was then X noticed that their new friend wasn't amongst them. He span around, wondering where she had disappeared to in the darkness. Axl looked around before his gaze came back to the generator again. Zero watched him, shaking his head and the young hunter.

"Axl you are really breaking the record for fastest time to zone out of a situation."

Axl raised his hand in front of him. "No I hear something."

X and Zero kept quiet to try and hear what Axl was talking about. At first they heard nothing, but soon whatever Axl was listening to got louder in volume. A low, rumbling, almost like a gallop could be heard above their heads and as it grew louder, the three of them grew cautious, readying their weapons for a worst case scenario. As time passed, the ominous sound started to fade away. When they thought it was alright to move, a thundering crash not too far from where they were standing, broke a hole in the building, letting the light from the sun in. The brightness temporarily blinded the three for a moment, wondering what had just made a skylight for them. X tried to squint past the dust and light when he heard something squeal. This snapped everyone's attention upward and soon they saw the answer to their questions.

Backing it's way out of the hole was a very large mechaniloid; a square head, two layers of triangular, spike-looking plates around his neck like some sort of mane, heavy thick front legs and back legs, a hulking chest, and a tail with more plating that made the rear limb look like it was made for wrecking solid objects. A sharp, axe-like plate glinted down the front of his head, and his large maw with fang-like protrusions, and between them, was no one other than the small dino reploid, struggling to get out of the machine's mouth.

"Hey!"

X immediately sprang into action, starting after the large beastly machine with Zero right next to him. Axl quickly switched to hover mode and darted right at the unknown machine, both pistols in hand ready to fire. The mechaniloid noticed the advancing trio immediately, snapping his jaw shut and taking off at an unexpected speed. X and Zero were determined however to make sure that whatever just ate their new friend wasn't going to get away with her. They took off after the giant machine quickly, dashing and leaping back up to the ground surface with ease. Following Axl's lead on the fleeing machine, they realized they needed a plan or they weren't going to get anywhere with getting back the one reploid.

"I didn't expect something that big without wheels to move that fast." Zero stated. "We're going to have to take out one of it's legs to get it to stop."

"Right, then I have an idea." X told Zero. "Have Axl distract it and you keep following. I'll try to disable one of it's legs."

"Got it." Axl said over radio link.

Zero nodded and kept bee lining it for the giant mechaniloid while X broke off towards a block of more intact buildings that still stood from yesterday. Axl managed to slowly gain some distance on his target and started firing against the heavy armor plates. This only resulted in the beast giving him a dirty look before taking a brutally sharp turn off to the left, and into another building. Forcing to slow down in order to turn, Axl grew annoyed that his guns had next to no effect on the machine. He watched the target to see if it was going to turn again, only to see that the entire machine drove itself right through the corner of a building and kept on running. Watching steel supports get torn, Axl hovered higher to avoid getting crushed by the toppling building and regain a visual contact on the fleeing target.

X, who was hopping rooftops now by this point, saw the carnage happen just ahead of him. He stopped to look at what was left of the streets below, finding the mechanioid change its course. Being the closest now, noticing Zero just turning another corner block, he looked back for Axl, only to find him now the furthest behind them all.

"That thing just drove through a building and my guns did nothing." Axl half complained, half informed his other two comrades. "That thing is armored to the extreme. I've never seen anything that impervious before."

"Nevertheless we need to slow it down." Zero radioed back. "X, try the back of one of the joints, hitting that has to do something."

"I've got it." X answered, charging his buster as he ran overhead the blonde hunter.

The mechaniloid however wasn't one to be deemed unintelligent. Knowing threats were behind it, it swung its tail at the nearest tall thing it could find, toppling anything from nearly fallen debris to old light posts, and even already weakened buildings. The other three nimbly avoided getting crushed and tripped by what was being thrown in their way, however were losing ground in the process. X watched how the machine ran, trying to determine its walking pattern. After a few seconds, he stopped, pulled his buster out in front of him and aimed carefully. After only a few seconds, X discharged a charged shot, he brought his buster back down to his side, running once again for the target, now hidden in a mass of dust. The small explosion confirmed that he hit something, but what that was, was not covered in a veil.

It cleared quickly, revealing that the metal giant had stopped running for dear life. It turned around, keeping his weight off of his left back leg. Even though the armor didn't break, energy built up and sparked all over the joint, making it difficult to move at all. As Zero drew closer, even he was surprised that X's shot didn't break the armor. A bit frustrated, Zero quickly drew out his famous Z-saber, lunging forward with it at the mechaniloid's head.

The machine responded by lowering the massive metal blade on his head to meet Zero's saber with. Zero pushed down hard to try and overcome the metal giant, but was thrown back with sheer force. The blonde hunter caught himself from falling, saber still tightly within his grip. The mechaniloid's blade for the most part looked undamaged, but once he turned it a bit, Zero found part of it had melted from where it made contact with his saber. He also noticed it started to glow, and within a second, the mechaniloid threw his head forward, releasing a wave of energy at Zero. The hunter dodged, landind near X who had arrived back on the scene.

"Hitting it from above won't do anything. We need to get at its underside." Zero stated firmly. "Who or whatever built this certainly built a living tank."

X had an idea. "I think if we have Axl just annoy it and distract it above, whenever the chance comes, try getting it under it's head. We need to knock that raptor out of his mouth."

"Why am I always the annoying distraction?"

"Because you're good at it Axl." Zero answered. "Lets get this done before something ELSE happens."

Axl changed his form of ammunition, using piercing rounds to try and get the machine's attention. Zero tried to get in a few blows underneath but the machine responded quickly to both attacks from both reploids. X went from either side of the beast, looking for any chance to attack without blasting Zero in the back of the head in the process. He could tell the mechaniloid was getting irritated, thrashing his tail around to try and bat things at Axl. X fired only a few shots around the jaw joint, trying to force the mouth open to let the trapped reptilian out.

However, this giant made of armor was losing patience. It looked from Axl to Zero, seeing an opportunity. As Zero ran towards the target, saber ready, the great machine lifted one of it's front set of 'claws' and whipped it around at Zero, striking him point blank and sending him off balance. At the same time, he pivoted his tail around well enough to strike Axl as he was distracted by the fact Zero was just clobbered in the face. Axl fell to the ground, but wasn't hit as hard as the blonde hunter was. X lowered his buster, automatically reacting to the fact Zero had been knocked down. He ran after his best friend, adamant on making sure he didn't get hurt. Zero, feeling like he was just hit by a train, slowly got up to his feet, holding his head and not looking as to what was above him.

The next thing he knew was that X was telling him to watch out, and something shoving him out of the way. Falling to the ground again, he sat up, looking at where he had just been standing. There was X, on the ground with a large mechaniloid foot on top of him, almost trying to crush him. Zero's frustration flared into impulsive action, as he quickly grabbed his saber once again for another attack in order to prevent X from being crushed.

"Get your damn scrap off of him!" Zero yelled at the behemoth, making strikes all over the arm of the machine, making scratches that turned into scrapes, that started to turn into gashes.

The mechaniloid growled at him, focusing on the blond hunter rather than X who was slowly trying to push the massive foot off of him. Zero was starting to get angry with how defensive the thing was built, determined to case some damage to it. In midst of all the commotion, Axl had found his bearings and was bold enough to jump on the machine's face. He clung onto it for dear life, as if he were a bull rider in a rodeo. The machine failed his head up and down, wanting the navy hunter off of his head. X managed to slip out from under the machine's grip, though was still on the ground. Zero took the opportunity to strike one side of the jaw joint hard with his saber, quickly moving out of the way for X to follow with another buster shot. A small explosion later and everything went quiet for a moment.

Once the smoke had gone into the wind, the three of them could see the giant mech come to a stop. It's maw slowly swung open and out rolled the small raptor it had taken. With a moan, the mech started to half hop half gallop away from the three like a hurt animal. Zero would of run after it if he wsn't concerned for X. He helped his partner up, seeing that the damage wasn't too bad, but he could never be sure with just looking.

"You alrght?"

"Yeah I'm alright." X answered. "It was odd…it wasn't trying to crush me."

"What do you mean?"

"It was restrained, I could feel it." X explained. "Like it just wanted me out of the way."

"Well whatever the reason, we just know it wanted this dino bot bad." Axl said, carrying the small reploid in question. "She's still operating just fine, but she seems a bit out of things."

"We'll take her back to base and have her repaired." X instructed. "Do we have communications back?"

Zero put his hand to the side of his helmet. "HQ this is Zero."

"Zero this is HQ. What on earth took you so long?"

"Long story, we'll explain when we get back." He said, not looking forward to the report on this.

"Right. Setting up transfer." The navigator informed.


	3. Chapter 3

"So let me get this straight…"

X, Axl and Zero stood before one of the reploids that worked in the medical bay, being given weird looks and stares that spoke 'what the hell happened' in volumes. Behind them, a few workers did their best trying to clean the dust stains from the raptor they had found. She was fidgeting over being washed off, like a stray dog that hadn't had a bath in ages. As more and more of the dust and dirt was cleaned off, you could see that the raptor was actually a darkish blue colour, and that her armor was a silvery colour. The other three couldn't really focus on the reptile's bath at the moment, as they had to explain for the past three hours about what happened on their mission to everyone and their minion's since no one could get over the idea that they went on a simple investigation mission and brought a prehistoric based reploid back with them.

"This…robotic dinosaur pounced Axl out of nowhere, you two came running, found out she wasn't hostile, she lead you to a generator she was trying to fix that had a com station on it, than after she shut it down, she was taken in the mouth of some giant monster tank mechaniloid that took an effort to force the thing to release said raptor over there, and then you brought it back to HQ and we're now having this discussion."

"That pretty much sums it up." Zero said with a shrug and a mildly irritated tone. "There were old files on this reploid and it seemed something that we should be looking in to on the side."

"The looks on those guy's face when we handed them papers and discs was hilarious." Axl commented with a snicker.

"Whoever built her must have started her of maybe even a century ago at most." X said, looking at the raptor. "I think that's who she was looking for, the person who made her."

"Either way, she's probably going to have to stay here under custody until we can figure out exactly what she is and have her checked up on." The medical operator stated. "Also, Signas is going to want more paperwork from everyone just for one small machine."

Everyone else seemed to take on a dismal expression at the mention of paperwork, complete with small rainclouds drizzling on the idea of getting a break from battling with Signas' army of technical protocol on a sheet. Some to think of it, why were they still using papers in the first place?

X tried to ignore the idea of paperwork, looking back at the small dino who now seemed to be dried off. She looked ten times better than she did before, and with her armor off, she looked so tiny, but lithe at the same time. The blue reploid noticed that she had chest plates still, even with her armor off, and he was curious as to what it was for. His gaze travelled to the armor piece that had the inscription on it, the one of which he had tried to read before. X took it in one hand and read it carefully.

'Chrod-ECH-0'

"Zero, does this look closer to what those files were titled as?"Asked X, taking Zero's attention away from talking to the medical operator.

The blonde hunter walked over and looked at the armor piece for a moment. He read it a few times before nodding and giving it back to X. The raptor proceeded to put her armor back on by herself, secretly happy that her tail plates were linked together and attached to her back plate. After a moment, X started to help the dino out, gently putting on her arm armor and the ones on her lower legs. Zero watched as well, wondering how a reploid like that could convert a limb into an entire tool and take off the armor that made up most of it, so easily.

X smiled at the adorable raptor when she was nearly finished, seeming to be more comfortable in her armor while in such a strange place. The last thing was her helmet, which X took and placed on the dinp's head, shaking it a bit playfully to be friendly. In return the raptor looked up at him with a cute expression of happiness and a smile. Some people who happened to be watching almost managed an 'awww' in their work, going back to the scans of the strange reploid. X stood up and Axl came closer to look at the reptilian robot.

"She sure is cute. So, just to be clear, we _are_ keeping her?"

Zero brought his hand to his head rather quickly and groaned. "Yes, for the time being Axl."

"Yes! Things won't be so boring around here."

"You still have to do your paperwork Axl." Zero mentioned in a rather unpleasant tone. "We all have work to get done, so if you don't want to have more to do, get going on it."

Axl frowned at him childishly, almost tempted to stick his tongue out at him. With a depressing groan he turned and walked out of the medical bay, throwing his arms up in the air with a drawn out 'fine' and going back to his office. Just before, he could open the door though, the raptor made a sound that made him turn around.

"Aaaaxlll." She said with a drawn out, echoing mechanical voice.

Axl immediately perked up and felt proud. "Cool! She said my name!"

"Axl go do your damn paperwork."

"She seems to be intelligent." X noted, looking at the raptor ignoring Zero's rather irritated attitude. "My name is X, and this is Zero."

The raptor looked at X, then at Zero, registering what the maverick hunter had told her. "X…Zerrrro."

"Aww she even talks cute."

"Axl, paperwork now." Zero stated, pointing out the door.

"Alright alright, geez…kink in your ponytail today or something Zero? Sheesh…"

Zero glared at the door Axl went through, never liking anything of the sort, be it an insult or comparison to his hair, be it out of his pride for it, the fact he wanted to deny that pride, or because he wasn't so obsessed with taking care of it as everyone thought, but it was most likely one or both of the first two. As he was still burning, or trying to, burn holes in the door with his deviant stare, X figured that they needed to call the raptor something. He looked at the inscription on the plate again, noticing the last part of, what he assumed some sort of acronym, looked like the word 'Echo'. The blue reploid remembered the dino's response to the word when they met hours earlier, and it was a positive one.

"Why don't we call you Echo right now?" X asked the raptor. "Is that alright?"

The reploid seemed to almost wag her tail like a happy dog, making X smile and laugh a bit. "Alright Echo, that'll be your name until we figure things out."

Zero finally returned from his senseless fuming and looked at X, only to close his eyes and sigh. X stood up, having Echo jump down on the floor, looking up at him with another smile. X found himself not being able to not smile at Echo, she was something found out of maverick attack debris and wasn't emotionally scarred or hostile, or even maverick it seemed, Echo just seemed to be a happy little thing.

"Well I need to go do a report on this and the files I found; you can do the custody work for the reploid." Zero told X, his tone reflecting how much he dreaded looking at more papers on his desk.

"Axl was the first to see her."

"How do you think it's going to end up if Axl is responsible for an unknown reploid who still needs some analysis…"

X took a second and thought about all the possible scenarios involving crushing HQ boredom. "…you have a point."

"She seems to be fond of you anyway." The blonde hunter added, turning towards the door. "Just don't spend too much time playing around, you have work to do."

X rolled his eyes, crossing his arms as he turned to his best friend. "Like you're going to get _all _your work done today."

"Hey, I'm not the one who sleeps at my desk muttering about paper shredders and coffee." He teased turning away to leave the medical room.

"It was a weird dream Zero!" X called out as Zero left. "What is up with him lately…"

X looked at the door for a while, and then looked back down at the dino reploid, who was looking up at him. Echo looked at X, almost confused for a moment, and then tilted her head like a puppy. X couldn't help but find his heart melt a bit over how cute that looked, finding a smile on his face. He rubbed his hand on her helmet, moving it just a bit over her eyes. Echo seemed to hum with glee, readjusting her helmet so it was on properly. X figured that he better do those few papers as quickly as possible, seeing as a random dinosaur walking about HQ was going to stick out terribly if things weren't properly dealt with.

"Signas is going to get such a surprise when he gets back from that meeting…" X thought aloud to himself. "Alright Echo, just follow me, and stay close, people probably won't notice you down there."

Echo nodded and followed X through the hallways of Maverick Hunter HQ. Echo followed X's pace easily, even if it was a near jog. For the first few minutes, they didn't run into anyone. Mostly because with Signas gone, everyone else tended to slack off and take an extra break. X kept looking back to see if Echo was still following him, and every time he did, Echo looked back at him inquisitively. He kept thinking how damn cute the thing was, just wanting to hug her. As the two got closer to the office, a few reploids passed by them, and noticing Echo as they did, stopped to say hi. Echo was nervous at first sight of the strangers but warmed up to them eventually, getting pats on the head and comments of awe and her seemingly infectious cuteness. Eventually they went back to work, still wanting to take it easy with the high commander not on everyone about efficient work ethics. Those who walked by in conversation were completely ignorant of Echo's presence, but the raptor easily avoided being trampled or tripped on by the small stampedes of reploid workers. Once the reached X's office, he opened the door enough for Echo to go in ahead of him, and then followed soon after.

X's office was rather clean, considering he had stacks of paperwork to fill out, not with a brand new addition to the pile sitting on his desk. He went and sat over in his swivel chair, leaning back and stretching out before he took a pen and stared at a custody form. Blank pages, he knew, right now were his worst enemy, and he had to endure hours of ink scribbling to get his work done. Reluctantly, X began his work. He looked up occasionally to see what Echo was doing, making sure she wasn't getting into any trouble. The raptor herself was standing on another chair at the time, reaching up over a filing cabinet to look at a vase of assorted flowers. She could smell them just the slightest bit, enough to make her snout twitch. After a few reaches, she finally came to terms with her small size and gave up, looking for something else to gander at. X stabbed the papers with the back of his pen, wondering how to answer the questions and in the end, ended up going with the 'Other' option and writing down why it was 'Other'. As X wrote, he could feel soreness on his shoulder, one that turned into a sharp pain if he moved his shoulder a certain way. All he knew was that if Zero found out, he was probably going to have a fit. X would at least finished the custody forms first before going in to see if he really did take any damage from the mechaniloid this morning.

X sighed, rubbing his shoulder. "Signas is going to get a kick out of reading this…"

Zero sat in a chair in the research center, rubbing the side of his head. He was feeling a bit tired and the idea of sleeping sounded really good to him right now and the remembering of his other two friends sleeping at their own desks did not help. He groaned and put his mind to the task at hand, trying to look like he was concentrating on his work. Other reploids were busily typing away at keyboards and looking at their screens that were scanning away the paper files. Trying to recover something that old and dated was going to take a long time, and trying to figure out what was originally written on those old sheets, just as long. At least the data discs would be a bit faster and Zero was hoping to get something from them, heavily encrypted or not.

The blondes thoughts started to wonder as he sat there; wanting sleep, to trying to look remotely interested in what everyone was doing, to thinking of coffee would keep him awake and if Axl was actually doing his paperwork.

"Zero we have something."

Zero snapped up, immediately getting up out f his chair and walking over to the reploid that called him.

"What is it?"

The reploid cleared his throat before explaining. "It's not much, and not very good quality either, but we have a bit of an audio recording from the data. We're still working on getting the rest of it."

"It's a start…play it back." Zero instructed, taking a step back.

With a nod, the reploid pushed a few more keys and soon static started to take over the speakers. There was someone talking in the background, but it wasn't audible quiet yet. Zero listened carefully and soon it sounded like a female voice was speaking. Everything was still broken by static, but he heard a few things that made him tense.

"…created…viral…maverick…hunt…useless…"

Without a second thought Zero turned to leave the research bay and go find X. Even if the message was fragmented, he was adamant on making sure that whatever the raptor was wasn't going to end up infecting X with some virus. A specific mention of 'Maverick Hunters' also had him concerned. If whoever made Echo had intentions for her to make maverick hunters in general incapable of performing their duties, then that was also something to be concerned about. Right now, Zero was more concerned for X's sake as he furiously drove himself down the hall. Axl was about to leave his office again when he was almost run over by the blonde hunter, who was completely oblivious to the navy hunter's presence. Axl knew the look on Zero's face and knew that meant trouble, so immediately followed him. As Axl followed, he could only figure out where Zero was going, as asking him returned no response. After a few minutes of hurried pursuit, he realized that it probably had something to do with X.

Soon Zero found the door he was looking for and almost forgot to turn the handle to open it properly. He opened it with such force that it made X jump in his chair, a few papers scattering on the floor in the process.

"Zero?"

"X, where is the raptor?"

"She's just over here looking around…" X pointed over his shoulder, a bit confused. "Why are-"

"She hasn't done anything to you?"

"Besides giving me questioning looks no…" X still gave him a questioning look. "I just finished up the papers…what is this about?"

"There was a weak audio recording found on one of the data discs." He started. "It wasn't very clear but what I did hear was something about creating something viral and a specific mention of Maverick Hunters and the word 'useless'."

X seemed a bit surprised, turning back to look at Echo for a moment. "Zero you should probably wait on more information before jumping to conclusions. Ow…"

Zero didn't think he was jumping to conclusions, more to the side of being extremely cautious.

"We still don't know enough about her to say if she's safe or not."

"That's the same reason you shouldn't be assuming she could be dangerous-ow…"

Zero was going to say something in argument again, but that was the second time X had said 'ow' now and it was starting to make him wonder. The blonde hunter noticed how X was relaxing one of his shoulders more than the other, and it wasn't long before he noticed a crack in the blue shoulder plate. Zero's face grew unimpressed and X was aware of it.

"I was going to get it looked at after some papers were done."

"X that needs to be looked at before it turns into something worse. " A stern and paranoid tone was throughout Zero's voice. "We're going back to get that fixed."

Just as Zero was about to turn around, he noticed Echo standing right next to where X was sitting. She seemed to be fixated on the damage in X's armor, and the look she had made Zero stare. What Zero couldn't see what that Echo's one arm had been turned into her arm tool again, and that she was intent on using it on X's shoulder. She put the tool to his back, making X turn around and wonder what she was doing, hearing something discharge with a hiss. Zero immediately tried to jump for the raptor, forgetting that X's desk and the hunter himself were in the way. Papers flew in all directions and Zero ended up on the floor with X underneath him. All Axl could do really was stand there and wonder what on earth Zero just tried doing. Echo had jumped back into a corner, hiding behind a filing cabinet from Zero, who continued to look at her angrily. X on the other hand, was a bit dazed, but was growing more irritated with Zero.

"Get off of me, what is going on with you today?" He asked, not getting an answer in response and trying to get up out from under Zero."

Axl could only look from the other side at the mess, and as funny as it was to see X try and get back up, he noticed something odd. How was X not causing more pain to his shoulder trying to pull himself out from underneath Zero, who at the time, was too paranoid and angry to really get up. That's when Axl saw it.

"X, look at your shoulder…"

X looked at Axl for a moment, and then returned his gaze to his shoulder. What he saw made him go wide eyed. He tried to get Zero's attention, but whatever X was saying was going in one ear and out the other. Finally X swatted him upside the head, which made Zero turn looking extremely annoyed.

"X you need to get looked at now, she could of inf-"

"Look at my armor."

It took Zero a moment after looking at the plate as he was told. He was stunned, the damaged that was there before, was completely gone as if it never happened. It was fixed up like new. Zero looked at the raptor again with a mixed look of question, paranoia and anger.

"What the hell did you do…"

Echo poked her head out a bit. "Fiiiix."

Zero looked at the raptor for a bit before looking back at X, who gave him this unimpressed scowl that said 'get the hell off of me now'. Zero got up, bringing X up with him but not letting go of his arm for the moment.

"We're going back to figure out what the hell just happened."

Axl, feeling left out of the entirety of what just happened, put out one arm in a cliché way and yelled "To the med lab!"

* * *

><p>R.I. Sabi notes:<p>

Okay so I just wanted to mention how Echo sounds when she talks...probably the best example would be Echo Echo from the Ben10 series, or if you have ever listened to an Eiffel 65 song [and if you haven't go find one] it's like that effect, only feminine and more potent.


	4. Chapter 4

Zero paced around back and forth like the angry blonde he was, growing more and more impatient by the second. Axl was sitting rather lazily in a chair, watching Zero, waiting for smoke to start steaming from his helmet any second. X in the meantime, was having his shoulder looked at while Echo was having her arm tool examined by three other reploids in the medical bay. X didn't pay attention to what was being done to him, and only stared at Zero with more subtle irritation for the way he had been acting all day.

X sighed at him, clearly annoyed with the blonde. "Zero sit down, you're not helping anything by wearing a groove through the floor."

Zero didn't answer; he was still fuming raving thoughts in his mind which made X all the more irritated. Axl, who was watching in utter boredom, and getting dizzy by the other reploid's pacing, decided that Zero really did need to sit down. Just as Zero turned around in front of a chair to start his trek across the five foot space again, Axl kicked him just behind the knee, forcing his leg to buckle and his backside to land in a chair just far enough away from Axl. Zero was surprised and quickly gave the navy hunter a growl and deathly stare. Axl just rolled his eyes at him.

"Sit down and calm down, it isn't helping, it's just gonna burn off your ponytail." He stated, turning away with his eyes closed.

Zero didn't respond yet again, he just sat there, rapping his fingers against the arm rest. X turned away from him to see what the other reploids were doing to Echo. On another table she looked like she didn't like having her arm prodded by other scientists or being scanned at the same time. So many people around her seemed to make her nervous, and X had to admit they were crowding her. X was going to open his mouth to say something but was beaten to it by the medical reploid looking at him.

"Well X…your armor is perfectly fine and you have no viruses of any kind."

X could feel Zero relaxing more without even looking at him. He continued to listen to his results.

"Whatever…Echo did, and when we were looking at your armor, there was…well we aren't sure what." He was entirely unsure how to put this without having Zero demand more information from him. "We just know it's not on our scanners anymore but the faint signal we did pick up matched the one on the raptor reploid. Hers however is hundreds of times stronger."

"So it's some unknown entity that fixed X's shoulder and whatever it is, it's in Echo?" Zero asked, trying to make sure he grasped the entire situation.

"Pretty much…looking at her tool she has, we've determined it's some sort of extraction and introduction device. Of what is extracted we aren't sure, and what is introduced may be whatever she did to X."

"Then could she of taken something from X?"

"We didn't see anything missing with X. Everything checks out fine."

X, who still wasn't keen on looking at Zero, could feel him relax a bit more. Axl stood up and stretched, glad that X was alright but didn't show it much. Zero kept sitting for a while, becoming more calm and full of relief. He still didn't like the mysteries surrounding Echo, but if X wasn't viral or damaged, then that was enough for him to relax. X got off the medical table, walking towards Echo who was still being looked at like some fantastic discovery that no one had seen before. The hunter wasn't impressed by how everyone was acting and how they were being ignorant to the raptor's clear expressions of anxiety.

"Wait a second—I'm getting a scan of something viral."

Zero shot up out of his chair, only stopping because Axl happened to be in front of him. Echo seemed to cringe at the mention of the word virus, and when the other reploids started to find the source of the viral signal, the raptor didn't like that even more. If she could have sank into the table she would of, but one of the other medical staff had a firm grip on her arm tool. As the scanner started to resonate with the viral signal, moving closer and closer to a specific point in the arm tool, Echo lurched forward, pulling her arm away and discharging a capsule from the tool. Something fell to the ground with a clatter and a clink, and the other staff watched it on the floor, rolling away. The scanner's direction went from Echo to the small durable vial on the ground, and everyone was quiet for a moment. One of the reploids went to touch the vile but Echo jumped on it first, taking it away from reach.

"No. Virus make sick." She said adamantly.

Everyone in the room just stood, dumbfounded for a moment. A vial of virus just came out of a reploid's arm, and she was telling them that it was bad? That it was going to make them sick? All the other medical reploids looked at each other for an explanation but no one found words to do so. X looked at Axl and Zero, who all looked at each other, just as confounded. Echo stood there, nervous and not liking the presence of the other reploids. What else was confusing them was if this reploid had a virus in it, and could be physically holding onto one, how was she not being infected? The silence was only broken by a familiar navigator hailing X on the intercom overhead.

"X, if you're checkups have gone through, we need you Axl and Zero to come take a look at the data we're decrypted from those discs." Alia explained.

"Alright we're coming." X answered, looking down at Echo. "Come on, we're going to go see what we found Echo."

"X, she just had a vial of what virus some out of her-"

"Zero, she's a reploid, not an experiment and won't be treated like one. There's enough data here to look into her without her being stared at." X snapped at him. "The scans already showed she isn't a maverick or infected, and beside the point, just because she may have an association with viruses, doesn't mean she's intending harm or destruction on anyone."

With that X turned and left the room in a huff, Echo following quickly behind him after one of the other reploids had managed to take it away from her in X's rant. Zero didn't say anything, wondering where X's frustration had come from. Axl just looked between the closed door and Zero in a bit of surprise.

"Dude you just got dog hous…I'm going to the research bay."

Axl slipped away from Zero's flaring expression of 'I'm so not in the mood', and followed X quickly down the hall. Zero sighed and turned around, looking at the other reploids who seemed to just be standing around, still a bit confused.

"Get looking into that container and do it in a quarantine, we don't need an accident." Zero instructed, starting to make his own way to meet up with the research team.

Zero couldn't figure out at the moment why X was being rather touchy about what he was saying in regards to Echo. Right now he just wanted to figure out the questions that seemed to be massing around her and that was it. As he walked down the hall, many moved out of his way, feeling that aggressive air about him.

X and Axl stood in the middle of the research room, X having Echo stand next to her. What would have been a quick report ended up being every female reploid in the room hovering around Echo and admiring how cute she was. X realized that this was going to become a massive habit and if he had to, would probably need to intervene at some point. Axl found it slightly amusing and even joined in, giving Echo attention and mild praise. The raptor was uneasy around so many people but found it better than being stuck in the med lab around inconsiderate people that were intent on poking her. Once Zero arrived, everyone slowly stopped being distracted by the dino reploid and went back to work. X only crossed his arms, keen on paying attention to what Alia had to say. Zero looked at X but turned his focus to the navigator as well, knowing that saying something now was a rather bad time.

"We found something about an old lab in an extremely dated sector on one of the files." The navigator began. "The date on the file goes back to what we think is about thirty years ago, but the lab itself was never recorded on any address at the time when we tried to cross reference it. We're thinking that it's hidden underground and it may still be somewhat intact."

"That's one hell of a long way out." Axl looked at the map provided on screen for them. "That's way on the outskirts of the city."

"Yes, which is going to mean we can only transport you so far directly." Alia continued. "It's not the best thing but based on coordinates I've managed to decipher, and that there aren't any stray mavericks in the area hopefully, it really should just be another investigation."

Zero couldn't help but bring in a sarcastic comment. "Right that 'last investigation' ended up bringing a robot dinosaur with us."

Alia didn't respond to that. "Right now that's all we have so far is the location. I've been trying at these codes myself but whoever did these discs up, knew how to keep them from prying eyes."

"It's good work anyway Alia." X said. "When do we head out?"

"Well Signas got back just now and he saw the forms and…"

"Greeeaaat." Axl moaned. "That means in an hour."

"We'll be ready by then." X informed Alia. "We'll get on a break in the meantime."

X turned to leave, not saying anything to Zero. He only watched the blue hunter leave, an expression of stuck up confusion on his face. Him and Axl left the room, slowly walking down the hall to figure out what to do for the next hour. Axl swung his arms behind his head, walking casually down the hallway with his eyes shut. Zero kept wondering why X was so furious with him and it was plain as day on his face he was thinking that, if it wasn't the sign that he was almost talking to himself.

The two walked for a good few minutes, passing by others who were now trying to work furiously with Signas back from his meeting. Other reploids murmured rumors about Echo and her reason for being here and the mission the three had taken just a few hours ago. Thankfully nothing about the virus vial, at least, not yet. The navy and red hunter continued to walk, for about a good ten minutes into a less busy part of HQ. It would be easier for them to relax before going out to the old laboratory Alia had found. Neither of them spoke to each other as they went. Axl kept walking, and without looking at Zero, started to break the silence between the two.

"You still aren't getting it."

"What? Why X is frustrated with me out of the blue?"

Axl shrugged, pretending he didn't know anything. "It is frustration coming out of a blue guy."

"Axl you aren't amusing anyone in the slightest."

"I find myself amusing so moot to your point."

Zero groaned at Axl, growing more frustrated. "What did he say when I wasn't there?"

"I dunno, I was busy giving Echo some attention." Axl said almost too casually, still not looking at Zero. "Something about you being a jackass though, I heard that much."

Zero was now more irritably confused. "To who, Echo?"

"Wow you're really blind today…"

"She could be viral, she had a virus in her and I'm not going to take any chances in a possible infection." Zero argued defensively. "I'm sorry if I'm a bit forward with wanting to make sure people I care about are safe."

"You aren't getting it." Axl insisted. "Isn't there someone else who's been associated with viruses around here?"

Zero stopped for a moment, wondering what Axl was talking about for the moment, but it was hard to see past his bit of anger he was holding on to. Axl let his gaze look at Zero to see if he had figured it out yet, but he still had an indecisive look on his face. The navy hunter sighed, and turned to go back down the hall.

"I'm gonna be elsewhere while we wait to be dispatched again while you figure things out with X."

Zero was still standing there, unmoving for a second, having what Axl said reel around in his head. He started to slowly walk again in thought, slowly starting to realize what Axl had meant by someone else being associated with viruses. He knew who Axl was talking about, he was talking about him. Still, what did that have to do with the way he had been treating Echo? She was a strange reploid with an unknown design, had an entire vial of the viral stuff pop right out of her arm. X still was keen on giving her some trust even after Zero had said…and that's when it hit Zero. It was what Zero said just earlier, and what he had been saying since. The blonde hunter turned right around, heading back to find X, knowing that he needed to say something to him.

X, was sitting back in his office, sitting down with his eyes closed resting. The fact that Zero was acting like he was, was really burning at X inside. No matter how much he tried to ignore it, it was still his persisting thought that was adamant on being his only thought. The blue reploid tried clearing his head, trying to relax before they had to leave yet again. Signas had a habit of working them like dogs and it either meant little sleep or little free time outside missions and paperwork. If it wasn't for the sake of the planet, X probably would have-

'_Knock' _"X?"

X only looked at the door, glaring at the person he knew was beyond it. He didn't answer, but that didn't stop Zero from coming in on his own. The red hunter walked in quietly and shut the door behind him, his ambiance now something entirely more pleasant. Despite this, X didn't look at him; he just continued to stare at nothing on the wall.

"Remembered to knock this time?" He spoke in a very neutral tone, but it still had a hint of irritation in it.

"X I came here to apologize…" Zero stated with a hint of sincerity in his voice.

X looked at Zero for a moment, seeing that he seemed to have calmed down. X shifted his eyes at the wall again and sighed. He wanted to say something but he thought otherwise, thinking it was uncalled for. Zero took his friends silence as his chance to speak.

"I realized what I said and that what I've been doing really wasn't the way to go about it."

"You were being hypocritical Zero." X corrected. "You of all people should know better. Being associated with viruses does not mean that the person is an immediate threat or enemy out to cause pain."

Zero took in a deep breath and exhaled, knowing X was right. "I just didn't want you going maverick or that being a possibility. I can't think of how I would deal with it if you did."

X was about to continue his end of the discussion when he stopped, thinking of what Zero just said. Now that he thought of it, Zero's actions did make some sense and it made the blue maverick hunter much less aggravated with him. X stood up, still waiting to say anything in response, as he wasn't wanting to forgive Zero so quickly yet. He was aware that Zero cared a lot for him, to a point of death. That drove X crazy more than any of the other habits the blonde reploid had. He scoffed at the thought, remembering the times before. He knew he couldn't be mad at Zero for very long, and finally looked back at him.

"You need to be a bit less dramatic when going about showing you care." X complained, coming to a better mood.

"I'm never gonna be you X, you have your way and I've got mine."

"Yeah of which sometimes involves death. How do you think that helps me, if you aren't here with me helping try to save what we can?"

Zero gave a weak laugh, looking at the ground while walking towards X. "The dying part I can work on…"

"The dying part you will work on." X corrected again.

"Hey, I've been good and alive for a good lone while so don't tell me I'm not working on it." Zero joked, putting one arm around his blue friend in a hug.

X gave a bit of a smile at that. "Just stay alive."

"So far so-"

"Fiiiix!"

"SON OF A-"

Zero jumped backwards when Echo randomly appeared from under X's desk right in front of him. The raptor jumped back behind X, not expecting Zero to be so startled by her. The blue reploid on the other hand found it rather funny that Echo made Zero jump in the first place. The blonde reploid gave Echo a look that was a mix of frustration and annoyance.

"Oh come on Zero, you didn't see her under the desk?" X asked, still laughing.

"Zero break. Echo fix." The raptor explained, looking a bit proud of herself.

Zero was quick to defend himself. "I didn't break the damn desk…"

"Zero you did a flying tackle to try and grab Echo, forgetting the desk was in the way, as well as myself…my desk is not made for reploid gymnastics."

Zero merely looked away, ironically in the direction of the clock. The blonde hunter noticed the time and knew that the hour was almost up. He sighed, so much for getting any rest before another mission. X looked at the clock on the wall as well; figuring now was as good a time as any to leave. Without a word they both left, as if already knowing what the other was going to say. X motioned for Echo to come, and she did, leaving the desk and shutting the door behind her. Zero, who was still cautious of Echo, only looked back at her from the corner of his eye, wondering why X was having her follow.

"X…"

"I know she's under protective custody, but if this is a lab she was made in, she may remember where to find it or anything in it."

"…alright you're in charge here."

X and Zero, as well as Echo headed for the transceiver room, already finding Axl ready to go. Alia was setting up the coordinates when the pair came in, only noticing Echo as she hopped up towards X as he moved towards the teleporting machine. The reploid picked Echo up and held him in his arms, making sure that she felt safe while being teleported awake this time around, and making sure she didn't possibly end up somewhere else. Once everything was ready to proceed, one of the other reploids came running in, looking as if he had some important information.

"We just picked up a viral reading in that far sector. It's just one, but it's huge and moving fast."

X, Axl and Zero all looked at each other, all seemingly having the same idea.

"I think it's time for a rematch."


	5. Chapter 5

For the first few moments X looked out onto the old sector, he wasn't keen on putting Echo down, not until she wriggled free of his arms with a squeak.

Everything around them was entirely more intact than where they found Echo, but in turn, it seemed so much more foreboding. Tall buildings with the wind moaning through them, rusting metal and rotting machinery littered the streets, trash tumbled in the gusts coming at their backs. No one said anything to break the silence for a while; they all just slowly walked forward, looking around at everything. It was monotone and empty; making the three of them depressed just being there. X's mind reeled with all the possibilities of what may have possibly happened, and those possibilities weren't happy ones at all. His thoughts took him away from reality for a moment as the possibilities played in a nightmare inside his head. Mavericks running about attacking anyone who dared to move or so much as breathe, screams and painful cries drowning the sound of explosions in the background, and smoke choking out the sky.

X spun around, coming back to reality, feeling a hand on his shoulder. He saw Zero, saying nothing, giving him a comforting look. X knew what that meant and gave a slight nod. They had a task to focus on.

"So it should be somewhere around this block." Axl said, regarding Alia's coordinates. "Just up this road and it's the next block over."

"Does anything seem familiar Echo?" X asked the raptor.

Echo went from one side of X to the other, looking around, almost as if she were uncomfortable around this place. She eventually stopped on his left side, looked up and him and shook her head.

"Not here." She replied. "Somewhere here."

That told X Echo wasn't sure about the place enough to give them any directions like before. He patted the raptor's head and turned to Axl and Zero.

"I guess it's looking the old fashioned way until Echo sees something she remembers." The reploid began. "We need to be alert just in case we find any other unwanted company, and stay within sight of each other."

The other two nodded, Axl's hands hovering over his pistols and Zero with his hand to the handle of his sabre. X led the way down the empty, solemn streets, listening for any sound that did not come from their boots or their breathing.

The wind moaned through and around the buildings as if it was some wayward spirit that hadn't moved on. The eerie atmosphere made Axl turn and look back from where they came out of mild paranoia that something was watching them. Zero kept walking forward and looking straight ahead, barely moving his head to look at anything at all. X watched Echo walk ahead of him, poking her head into open car doors, the smashed windows of nearby buildings. She flopped out of sight a few times, only to jump out again just as X was running up to make she was alright. The raptor seemed focused on looking for the location of the laboratory, X thought maybe a bit overly focused when Echo flipped herself into a metal barrel as she was looking into it. The metal clanging made Axl jump and almost shoot the container, but he managed to avoid pulling the trigger all the way somehow. X ran over, leaning down to pull Echo out of her predicament. As he did, he saw that Echo was covered in fine dirt, and that she was trying to shake it off her head. That only resulted in her wiggling the end of her snout and snorting a small sneeze.

"Echo dirty." She complained, wrinkling her snout. "Echo no like dirty."

X couldn't help but smile a bit, putting her down on the ground. "Well you work on staying out of anything that looks like a trash can."

Zero only rolled his eyes and looked the other way from Echo, and ignoring the fact Axl was still looking around in numerous directions rather frequently. The blonde hunter was too, starting to get that feeling of being watched, but said nothing about it, only looked up at the higher levels of the empty buildings to make sure that there wasn't really anything around. What seemed like days of endless searching and looking around was starting to make the group, except for Echo, just a bit annoyed; be it them being stuck in such a dreary place or the fact they couldn't find what they were looking for, or both. Every so often Echo had to be pulled out of some enclosed space for some reason or the next, or something looked familiar and then it didn't. X decided that it was time for a short break before they continued their seemingly endless search, sitting down on a concrete slab. Axl took the queue to slump down on the ground and stretch out, sighing out of boredom in the process. Zero only leaned against a wall with his arm crossed and eyes shut, looking just slightly annoyed with the entire mission. His expression grew a bit more annoyed with a repetitive tapping sound came to his ears.

"Axl cut it out."

"Cut what out?"

"That tapping noise." He replied.

Axl held his arms up and looked at Zero confused. "I'm not doing anything…"

Zero looked up and looked at the navy hunter, seeing that he was indeed not doing anything. Zero looked a X, who was just sitting in his place still with Echo sitting behind him. Axl started to look around, also hearing the faintest of metal clings in the distance and X did the same. If none of them were making that noise, then someone else was here. Zero stood up from the wall, growing tense and ready for something to pop out at them, specifically, the mechaniloid from before. Axl and X also followed, not wanting to move, but all trying to place where the sound was coming from. No one could pin point where the sound was, however when X turned to look behind him, he saw Echo staring fixatedly at a building just down the street from them. The raptor was unmoving and seemed anxious by it.

X put his hand on the raptor. "Echo?"

Echo didn't move, she only moaned an uneasy sound. X turned to his two friends, who nodded at him once again. X was about to say something when he felt Echo move forward towards the sound. Surprised, he watched Echo hop a ways ahead of them before deciding to follow, wondering what was going through her head. The navy and blonde hunters behind him were wondering similar things as they followed through the sparse debris.

"If she keeps up like that she's going to get herself killed."

X would have responded but a clattering crash stopped him from speaking. The group stopped for a second, Zero was seconds away from drawing out his sabre, X readying his buster and Axl with itching trigger fingers. They all looked up at one of the tallest buildings in view, one that looked like a skeleton of its former self. There wasn't a window left in the sky scraper, which was cause for the wind to whistle more darkly through it. From the higher floors, small bits of metal and other trash was being thrown out the empty holes, only to fall with a crash or clink on the street below. As the three neared, they could see the entrance to the old building, and Echo standing inside. She was looking up at the ceiling, as if to the floors above, but she wasn't going up there herself. X walked over to her and pet her head as the other two looked around quickly.

"Echo I want you to stay here and hide." He explained to her calmly. "We don't want you getting hurt. If anything happens to you while we're gone, you run and find safety. Got it?"

Echo seemed to snap out of her daze, and looked at X, nodding. She scampered off into a darker part of the room, finding an old metal sipping crate and tucking herself inside. X stood up again, joining his fellow hunters who were waiting for him at the base of the stairwell.

The three proceeded cautiously up each set of stairs, finding that the rooms they came into extremely cluttered with trash, glass and metal strewn all over the place. The lack of space left for little room to move around and search, making for a rather hasty exploration upwards to the destination floor. Axl kept watching the back, hearing some scuttling noises, or at least he so thought he did. X checked every corner and Zero followed behind him. If one didn't know any better, one would say all the rooms looked the same; the only difference was one being mirrored to the next one. Finally the trio came to something different.

"The stairway is blocked." X informed the other two. "I don't think trying to blast it out is a great idea."

"That might damage the structural integrity of the building…" Zero walked over, trying to see if he could see around the blockage. "Looks like I could cut it out with my saber."

"Alright we'll wait for you."

Zero pulled out his saber, looking at the blockage and figuring out how to get it to crumble in as few blows possible. Making a good calculation, the blonde hunter struck the debris with a swift slash, making a deep, heated gash in the pile. However the noise that followed made him stop. It was like a quick flow of sand and pebbles rushed out from being sealed in a container. Then, there was nothing but quiet.

"That can't be a good—"

"GAH!"

Zero and X wheeled around, finding Axl being jumped by a pair of small, insect-like robots. Intent on attacking his head they screeched and clung to him with sharp claws, ready to bite whatever part of his face they could get a hold of. X dashed forward and grabbed each one of the bots, trying to pry them off of the navy hunter, knowing shooting them point blank would also his Axl point blank in the head. Zero was ready to take them out skillfully with his saber when he felt he couldn't move his foot. Looking down he saw an entire swarm clinging to his leg and anchoring him into the ground as more joined to try and immobilize their target.

Zero grew angry, taking his saber on the other hand and slashing away at the bots, not even thinking that he could damage his own boot in the process. "Get the hell off of me!"

High pitched cries echoed as more of the bots were turned into halves of their former selves. Axl tried gunning any ones that were scuttling across the floor, but it was difficult trying to see past X's fingers. X managed to pull one off of the other hunter, kicking it away fiercely and bringing out his buster. With one hand still trying to take the one bug off of Axl's head, aiming wasn't as easy, and the insect bots were quick. There was also the issue of shooting at the floor too much would cause the floor under them to cave in, and they would be left half buried under more debris and left to these swarming attackers.

Zero managed to take a few steps closer towards Axl and X, close enough to be within range with his saber.

"X move!"

X looked at Zero, seeing his saber raised and was forced to move out of the way, letting go of the bot seemingly glued to Axl's head. With one swift blow, Zero cut the bot well in half as he did the others, letting the pest fall to the floor with a clatter. Axl was a bit shocked at first and quick to protest.

"That could of hurt me as well!"

"But I didn't." Zero snapped back.

"We need to get out of here, the-"

Everything stopped for a moment when a low, deep moan was heard throughout the room. X looked down at the floor, realizing what that moan was. The insects around the room seemed to know what it was as well, though some of them fled the room, and others kept on trying to attack the maverick hunters.

"I'll hold them off your backs, get the way clear." Axl told them, going into hover mode with trigger happy guns blazing.

X and Zero ran over to the blocked entrance. When it refused to move, Zero took another swing at it with his saber, cutting it into smaller bits to try and kick over. Slowly the stairs beyond could be seen and with one final attack the way finally cleared enough to pass. X called for Axl to follow, feeling the floor beneath him start to grow weaker. The navy hunter slowly hovered his way around to the opening, making sure that any advancing insect bots were taken care of and he wasn't going to be jumped again. With Zero yelling at him to pick up the pace, Axl finally came through the doorway with Zero at his back. Once the three of them were on the stairs and in the next empty room, they heard a thundering crash, followed by another crushing of concrete and metal. The three of them looked at one and other for a moment.

"All of those bots had to have been infected with a virus. I haven't seen such erratic behaviour in something so simple."

"I think it was trying to get right at my helmet crystal." Axl added. "It didn't though but I could hear it trying to."

"As long as you're alright Axl." X told him. "Something that small carrying around a virus isn't good for anyone or anything. Maybe the large viral signal was a bunch of smaller ones amplifying each other instead of a single one like we initially thought."

"Could be." Zero replied plainly, half hoping it was that mechaniloid from before so he could show it what happens when anyone messed with X. "We'll let Alia know about it so we can have this dealt with before an epidemic breaks out."

"_SKREEEEEEEE!"_

A piercing, inhumane shriek rang out through the entire building, carrying on for a good minute or two. The hunters stood there, almost stunned by the sound with both hands on either sides of their helmets, trying to block out the horrible noise. It only stopped for a second, coming in repetitive shots followed by the sound of more random objects and debris being thrown outside. The trio went and looked back down the stairs they had just escaped from, looking to see what the source of the sound was. At first they didn't see it when there was a moment of silence, but eventually the crying stranger made himself visible.

"Find…no fix…child broken…pain…no who…"

The erratic speaking reploid looked nothing human. Two large, dull army green plates covered a hunched back like some kind of insect; his head was a round piece with a large pinkish red gem-like eye right on top, with two smaller ones that looked more like eyes on either side of his head. Small arms with narrow yet sharp claws sifted through the rubble and heavy footed reverse joint legs crushed anything that he seemed to deem not important.

"Switch…switch switch…Exo Exo…Exo…back."

It kept on its way for a moment before abruptly turning out of the blue to look right at Zero, Axl and X. It screeched again and backed away for a moment, then took a few, aggressive steps forward. He had both metal armor plates at his sides now, though he still stood hunched over. The hunters jumped down to the demolished floor, noticing that the machine they were looking at had taken out other parts of the level looking for whatever he was looking for.

"Who exactly are you?" Zero half asked half demanded from the odd reploid.

The machine in question seemed to fiddle with his claws, as if he was unsure, before answering.

"Switch…Exo…not exact—many many incomplete…find it must find IT."

'Many incomplete?' Zero was starting to think that this thing, that called itself Exo, was responsible for all the viral bots they just encountered before, and when he looked at X and Axl from the corner of his eye, he knew he wasn't the only one thinking the same thing.

"Find what? What are you looking for?" X continued, not quite readying his buster yet.

"Find…find find find—maverick killers…MAVERICK KILLERS…" Exo said, raising both armor plates high and defensively over his shoulders. "Switchblade Exo…execute KILLERS…"

X readied his buster and Zero drew out his saber once again, ready for a fight. Axl began firing at the bug, but he moved one of his armor plates in the line of fire, having the metal absorb the energy rather than take any damage. Exo lunged forward towards the three, Zero returning with his own saber raised, aiming for the small joints that made the armor shell so easy to move. X charged up a quick shot and fired it at the insect reploid, forcing him to stop and shield that attack as well and leaving Zero with an open chance to strike. As the blonde hunter brought down his saber, he could feel it meeting something fiercely, however, once it struck, the blade did not move through anything. What there was, hiding underneath the armor plate, another set of appendages with sharp, glowing scimitars from either side of his body. He was blocking Zero's strike with one, and then stepped back, lunging forward with the other one. Zero stepped to the side, landing a blow on Exo's armor plating but once again, only to have the blow absorbed. Axl tried again with his pair of pistols as X was charging a more powerful buster shot, however that only met the other armor plate.

"If this thing absorbs that much energy through those plates then we need to see if we can overload it." X explained, firing off another shot.

The other two agreed, seeing as even with three of them attacking this reploid, they weren't getting anywhere with it. Something with two swords and two shields wasn't going to be easy to take down. Axl laid heavy fire, trying to aim for Exo's head, but even as he was moving around erratically, he was able to keep any of shots from so much as touching his head, even as the hunter hovered around the room. Zero moved in and out of attacks, making sure that Exo couldn't land so much as a scratch on X as he was charging up a more powerful shot every time the last one seemed to do nothing. The enemy's erratic behaviour was only giving him an advantage, being able to change his point of focus on a dime, never mind the fact he was faster than he looked. X held onto his buster change until he couldn't possibly hold onto it any more without it causing damage to his arm, ready to fire at any second. Exo turned immediately from clashing blades with Zero to jumping at X, sensing the power coming from his buster. X released the shot, and jumped out of the line of attack for good measure. There was a small explosion and mask of smoke over Exo.

The smoke cleared, revealing that Exo had indeed blocked the shot, however the plate of metal was now black rather than the green he it was before. The scimitar on the opposite sire was glowing so brightly, it was almost white, as opposed to the other one, which was in a dim red. The reploid however did not stop attacking; singing the one scimitar across from him horizontally, a large wave of energy shot out from it, the ends taking out whatever part of the building was still standing. Zero and X jumped back out the hole in the wall leading outside, Axl over their heads still trying to get land a headshot on the insane reploid. Exo sped out after X and Zero, spinning around and sending more energy waves at the navy hunter on his way down. He landed with a heavy crash on his feet, not leaving a second of time without continuing his assault.

"This isn't getting us anywhere; we need to figure out something else!"

"Clearly Axl!" Zero yelled, dealing with the twin scimitars of the ADHD reploid in front of him. "You're going to need to shoot at it from two different directions."

"How do you expect me to do that?"

"You have TWO guns Axl…"

After coming out of his absent minded thinking Axl had an idea. He began to fire a few shots at whatever armor plate wasn't blocking X's buster shots, then dashed to another side of the bot and started firing again. Even with his fast movements the reploid was able to block any of the shots. After another dash the hunter activated his stealth mode, becoming completely invisible to Exo. Exo turned his head a moment, screeching at Axl's disappearance in confusion. Zero took the chance to strike Exo's arm, causing a deep cut in his armor. Angrily shrieking again, Exo moved more aggressively and much quicker than before towards Zero, flailing his blades at him, and overwhelming him with a blind fury. The blonde hunter stepped back again and again, avoiding whatever blows he couldn't block with his own blade. X saw what was going on and started to fire as many shots as he could to try and distract the reploid from targeting Zero, but the armor plate was acting as a wall against every attack.

Zero watched carefully, waiting for an opening to strike again. Once he could see one coming, he stepped forward with blade ready to finish what he started with the other arm. His saber met Exo's arm, completely taking it off his body in a crackle of electricity and hissing of melted metal. Zero felt a small sense of accomplishment; however the feeling was soon diminished by a searing heat in his shoulder.

X saw what had just happened and ran forward with another charged shot. "Zero!"

Exo pushed down harder with his scimitar, trying to lodge it right between the hunters shoulder plate and his body, forcing Zero onto the ground, ready with the other blade to finish him off. Zero met the other free blade with his own, forcing it away from him as best as he could, using his other arm to try and push the blade from his shoulder. X aimed at Exo but knew that another shot would have been absorbed again. He stood their aiming in frustration, wanting to take a shot at Exo but not hurting his best friend in the process. As he was aiming, something bright caught his eye, and he looked up, finding a floating piece of glass reflecting light into his eye.

X knew it was Axl immediately, and no sooner than a second, Axl reappeared, firing one shot from one side of Exo and another shot above him, leaving only a second in between shots. Exo grew surprised, though blocked both shots as he looked at Axl. Zero then used the lack of focus on him to push the blade out of his shoulder and take one of the scimitars clean off of the reploid's body. The blonde hunter dashed backwards, leaving X to fire on the exposed side of Exo. Booming followed once the shot came into contact with Exo, and once again, more smoke. X, Zero and Axl stood, waiting to see what had happened. Once it cleared, they saw the reploid still standing.

Zero was stood up, ready to make another attack when he noticed, as the other three did, that Exo was still standing, but he wasn't moving. The reploid remained still as if he were dead, frozen in the position he was last seen functioning in. After a moment, sparks flew out of his wounds, and Exo slowly came crashing to the ground. Once he did the three of them relaxed a bit more.

"That was a pain in the ass…" Zero commented, his hand on his damaged shoulder ignoring the other wound in his arm plating.

X looked at what was Exo for a second before coming over to Zero. "You need to have that looked at."

"I'm fine X."

The blue reploid glared at him. "Every time you say that something else goes wrong."

The blonde hunter was about to protest when another familiar moaning sound echoed through the streets. The three of them looked back up at the building, and for a second they thought it was moving. However the more they looked at it, the more they could see it actually was moving, and in their direction.

"That massive energy wave must of taken out part of the building, we need to move!" Axl announced, starting to run out of the radius of a future building demolition.

X and Zero started to follow Axl when X stopped, looking back at the building. Zero looked back, stopping in his tracks and going back for X, bringing him along with him.

"X we need to move now! We don't have time for-"

"Echo is still in there!"

Zero continued to half drag half carry X out of danger with him, "X there isn't any time to go back!"

"Zero let me go!"

The two of then bickered until Axl eventually had to come and help drag X away. Only a few moments later did the entire building collapse with a boom, sending dust and papers and smaller debris in all directions. The hunters took cover until the crash had settled, sitting behind a stack of old construction beams. Once everything came quiet again, X shot up, looking at the mess of a building that was just standing moments ago.

All he could think of was that Echo was still inside that building.


	6. Chapter 6

X stood staring at the mass of destruction for what seemed like an eternity. He wouldn't accept the possibility of Echo being crushed to death and he had the urge to attack the debris and try to pull her out himself. Zero had a firm grip on him, preventing him from running back towards the decimation without thinking of a plan first. He knew what X wanted to do, but knew that would of just made things worse.

"None of us can go looking through that. That would make whatever is left fall even further to the ground." Zero tried explaining. "She's small, and we found her in a huge debris field. I'm sure she's fine and found a way out."

X didn't respond for a while, and Zero's words didn't sink in for a good few minutes. X stared at the carnage, Zero stared at X. Axl had his gaze wander like an ADD child. Everything was silent, and despite that Zero wanted to move on right at the moment, he waited for X to come around. Axl stared around, knowing X needed some time to calm himself down and wondering about what to do now that his new pet dinosaur may or may not have been crushed by a building they had a hand in blowing apart. The hunter kicked a rock over, watching it roll under an old bench. As it came to a stop, he saw something else move away quickly under the shadows. He stared at the spot for a moment, scanning around to see if his eyes were just playing tricks on them. After a moment, there was nothing, and the trigger happy hunter relaxed a bit, even though he still kept looking in the one direction.

X still hadn't stopped staring at the collapsed building, and Zero knew that looking at it for too long was going to result in the blue hunter possibly mourning. He let X go a while ago, knowing he wasn't going to do anything brash. Zero put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and after a moment X finally looked away from the wreckage and at Zero.

"X-"

The sound of gunshots cut Zero off before he could say what he wanted, immediately putting him in battle mode with his saber gripped in hand and facing behind him where Axl was. X also jumped with one hand on his buster, wondering why there were gun shots at all. Behind them, Axl was hovering with both pistols in hand, looking around the ground like he had something to be incredibly paranoid about. Zero stopped his urge to lunge at whatever the threat was, which appeared to be nothing other than Axl's impulsive trigger fingers, and X lowered his buster. Even though Axl had a tendency to jump the gun, both literally and metaphorically, there was always a reason why he was shooting at something.

"What the HELL Axl?!"

"There was a BUG crawling around!"

Well…almost always a good reason.

"I'm about to step on your head like one in a second you-"

"No!" He exclaimed before he could give Zero the chance to finish his threat. "Like the ones that were trying to bury us alive before."

That explanation changed the scenario. Being such small robots, they wouldn't of died so easily so easily in the building collapse, however the three of them made an incorrect assumption of them being completely gone when they were fighting them off earlier. Zero and X looked around at the ground, wondering if and possibly when these things were going to show up again. As X looked around, he couldn't help but get distracted with radio interference from inside his helmet. He stopped and tapped the side of it, wondering if it had possibly been damaged and that Alia was trying to contact him. Eventually it got to a bothersome point, and no amount of hitting the side of his head was making it any better. Zero noticed this and gave a questioning look between checking the ground for creepy crawlers.

"I think HQ is trying to contact me."

"If they can't get through to you, why haven't they tried one of us yet?"

X was wondering the same thing himself. "Maybe if you tried calling them-"

Axl shot at the ground again, but rather than him missing his target, he shot at it in such a way that the small bot would be blown up in the air. X and Zero looked and saw the small bot flip a few times, and cling to the nearest standing light post. Its large light of an eye was looking at X, as if it was targeting him. Zero noticed this immediately and didn't like it. However Axl beat him to it by shooting at the small mechanical menace. The shot went straight through the old light post, sending it falling to the ground in a clatter and smash. Axl twirled his one pistol around his finger, smug with himself and feeling as confident as ever. Zero calmed down just a bit, knowing Axl was a fair shot and it was next to impossible for him to have missed at that range.

"I'm really starting to not like this place."

"What was likeable about it?"

"Are you two not getting static at all?"

Axl and Zero looked at X who was being entirely bothered by the sudden static in his com link.

Axl returned to the ground, looking at X. "If Alia is trying to contact you and she can't…she's going to break more mugs in the break room. Maybe if you just hit your helmet hard enough…"

"Axl if that solved all of our problems I'd of done it to you long ago."

"HEY! This is coming from the guy who can't stay ALIVE!"

"You're going to get somewhere you don't-"

"Will you two STOP and SHUT UP…" X yelled. "I think something getting through, would you be quiet!?"

The other two reploids immediately stopped and looked at the blue hunter, waiting for some insight as to who may have been talking to him or trying to contact them. X focused hard on the static, trying to get what bits and pieces of audio he may have been able to understand. There was a voice, but it was slightly mechanical and sounded odd. It blended in with the static almost too well. After a while it started to become a bit clearer, and X made out the following words:

Bug, and fix.

X wasn't sure who was talking to him, or why it was about fixing bugs. However what he could make out of the voice gave him a strong feeling of familiarity. Soon enough he made out one more word that made him have a sudden moment of realization.

Echo.

"It's Echo!"

"What?"

"How can i…she get into our com links?"

"That dino can hack-OH MY GOD!"

Before Axl could finish his sentence, the small insect bot from before appeared again, getting very close to X. Zero caught on immediately and was not pleased at all, immediately trying to crush what he thought was a miniature version of undying hell under his boot. X moved out of the way, still trying to listen to Echo's broken transmission while avoiding the insect that seemed keen on trying to cling to him like some sort of tick, and Zero cursing at the thing to die. The bug was fast and always seemed to move out of the way just in time to avoid its death by metal heel. This only infuriated Zero, who continued to vent his rage even more loudly, and made it harder for X to hear Echo.

"Echo, if that's you, you need to try to amplify the signal…I can't hear you."

"…bug…fix…talk…Echo…fix...talk…X…"

X couldn't make out the entire message, and that's all he was getting from it. Something about a bug, it being fixed and something about talking, of which X assumed, was getting whatever signal she was using to work better.

'_Wait…'_

Then it hit him.

"Zero stop!"

Zero was about to stomp on the current bane of his existence just before X grabbed his arm and threw him off balance enough to miss. The small bug bot scurried off under a stray piece of metal and hid there.

Zero was still irritated and adamant to know what was going on. "What?"

"I think that bug is the reason why I'm getting a bad reception from whatever signal Echo is using."

Zero found himself at a bit of a loss for a moment, however Axl spoke for him in his place.

"Again…what?"

"All I'm getting is something about a bug being fixed and that Echo fixed it."

Zero was finding that incredibly hard to believe. "Those things were under control from that crazy maverick we just finished dealing with, the rest of those things tried to get us as well, how can Echo say she 'fixed' it?"

"A vial of some virus came out of her back at HQ…" Axl commented. "You think maybe…?"

Zero crossed his arms and adamantly stood with a deathly glare on his face. "I'm not trusting that thing is not going to get one of us infected and screw everything over."

X heard Echo say something, the signal getting better and clearer. He was quick to repeat her words.

"Echo says for you to stop being silly."

"I'm NOT being…" Zero trailed off. "Wait…how the HELL can she hear me?"

"She says it's the bug."

Zero looked down and jumped backwards a bit, seeing the same bug bot from before. It tilted in a way at him that imitated the raptor's curious head tilt, and the blonde hunter could immediately tell that Echo had some control over it. He relaxed only a tiny bit, scolding this thing with every bit of anger he had at the moment. Axl wanted to be amused by the entire thing, however knew he wouldn't live to tomorrow if he made any comments that he had reeling through his mind. However, he needed to make a point.

"You know…" He began calmly. "Echo did fix X's armor before…we aren't sure how that happened either. Maybe she did fix this thing and is now using it to hack into X's head and talk to him that way…?"

Zero turned to glare at him. "You have a really bad way of making a point Axl…"

"Look Zero, I'm holding onto it, and I'm fine." X told him, almost making Zero jump for the small robot and whack it far out of his hand. "I can hear Echo fine, and this way we can find her and get back and report that odd maverick that attacked us."

Zero didn't stop glowering at the robotic crawler for a moment. X and Axl stood there, waiting for an answer. Eventually the blonde hunter gave out a heavy sigh and decided to go with it for now.

"If anything goes even the slightest bit off…ANYTHING…"

"Yeah yeah you're X's big bodyguard." Axl finished quickly for the sake of moving on. "Let's go find her and get back before something else happens."

Zero growled at Axl as he continued to walk and X asked Echo where she was. The blue hunter listened carefully, and by the sounds of how Echo was describing her surroundings, she may have been under the streets, possibly in an old subway station or possibly old sewer systems. Axl preferred the idea of not walking through old sewers, as did Zero but they didn't get to pick and choose where they went. Right now they needed to find a service tunnel or a manhole they could use to get under the streets. After that, it would be a, what Zero would of called annoying and irritating, game of Marco polo. The three of them went separate ways to find an entrance to the underground that Echo was located in. X kept trying to talk to the raptor the entire time, making sure she was alright and not damaged or harmed in any way. Zero tossed debris over loudly, trying to get rid of some of his irritation and anger, while turning towards X every few seconds to make sure that bug didn't try anything funny. Out of the three of them, Axl wasn't distracted with some other thing he needed to be worried about, and was searching the most quickly. The three of them took only a few minutes before Zero found a covering to the entrance of the tunnels under their feet.

Zero had no trouble pulling the metal panel off, revealing a dark hole with metal rungs providing steps down into the ominous underground. Axl soon followed and X came last, still trying to find out where Echo exactly was. Axl went down first, hovering for the sake of it. As he came down, it was clear that finding their way around was not going to be easy. To his liking though, it wasn't an old sewer, and indeed was an old subway system. Zero and X soon followed him, landing in puddles of water once they made contact with the cement. The entire tunnel was in near complete darkness. The only thing providing them light was a few flickering lights along the wall in an eerie orange glow. The three of them chose a direction and started moving, having a feeling of being watched overcome them. The little machine of a bug Echo was using to communicate to X hopped off his hand and onto the ground, scuttling forward and blinking its reddish light at the three of them.

"Did that dinosaur mention something about a homing signal as well?" Zero asked. "Otherwise this is going to be another few hours of wandering around aimlessly."

"Well we'll follow the bug and find out won't we?"

"That's what Echo said anyway." X added in. "Come on you two."

Echo wasn't keen on having the other three walk, and made them sprint to keep up with her makeshift solution. The trio was forced to jump over large piles of debris, squeeze through small spaces, and run through the blind darkness, all the while getting Zero's hair caught on something more than once.

"Why don't you just cut this stuff away with your saber Zero?"

"Because Axl," Zero started in a very nonchalant yet sarcastic way. "If I just go cutting things in half in the dark, something else could possibly fall on our heads and then we'd all be stuck under who the hell knows how much cement and metal and-"

"Alright I get it. Your hair trouble dude."

Zero growled at him as he tried to pull his way past X into the open room ahead of him. Axl stood waiting, taking a look at the room that seemed to be a bit better lit than all the previous ones. Zero stood there, stuck between two pieces of cement and metal bars while X ahead of him was trying to get his one arm out from being stuck behind him. Zero glared off into space, waiting and knowing he was stuck until X got unstuck. Eventually the blonde hunter got impatient and tried his hand at getting x's one arm unstuck himself.

"Would you hold still."

"I'm fine would you give me just another second?"

"I would if I didn't feel like getting crushed and found this place the slightest bit appealing."

After a moment, both awkward and annoyed, X's arm finally became free, and Zero was able to get out of his own tight space. The three of them stood; ignoring the fact they let a lack of space stall them, and continued to look around where they were. One thing that immediately caught their attention was that this room seemed to have been in better condition than the tunnels, if not an entirely separate area from the old subways.

"Does this seem like some sort of garage or a vehicle bay even?"

Axl had a point and the more the other two looked around, the more he could agree. This wasn't any room for keeping extra subway cars either, it wasn't made for such things. Instead it looked like it was meant for some sort of large tank, and wherever the tank was, none of them knew. For all they could guess, it was gone and lost somewhere else in the city above them, partially if not completely blown apart.

"Why would this be here?"

"Maybe something in there could tell us."

Zero pointed to another room that was lit in dim amber, one that didn't look to be in the best condition from their stand point. The three of them walked over to it and peered inside with caution. What they saw didn't give any of them a pleasant feeling.

The room was entirely torn apart; wires and cables hung from the ceiling like cob webs, and sparked every now and then. What wasn't hanging from the ceiling or the wall was on the floor, along with old papers, smashed equipment, overturned furniture, bits of glass and metal, and a lot of neglect. Whoever or whatever came through here last, came through a long time ago. X wandered around, looking at everything while Zero sited through what was left, hoping to find something intact.

"Well I think we found that lab we were looking for…"

"It's in worse shape than the last one…"

"Thanks captain obvious…" Zero commented as he flicked a small rock at Axl.

X ignored his two comrades for the moment, looking at the odd table that was in the middle of one part of the room. It seemed to be smashed up quite a bit, and therefore he assumed it was of something important. The blue hunter moved around the table until his foot kicked against something. He looked down, unsure of what it was, as it was covered in what was once part of the table. He moved some of the smaller bits aside, until it came to a large metal sheet. As he lifted it up, he started to make out what it was, and just before he completely lifted the sheet off of what he had just kicked, he saw what that very thing was, and jumped back out of fright, dropping the sheet with a loud clatter. Zero and Axl immediately turned, finding X staring at the ground with a look of mild shock on his face. They ran over to the other side, wondering what had just happened.

"X, what is it?"

X didn't answer for a moment; he only kept looking at the floor. Axl and Zero looked at him from the floor. Zero went to pick up the sheet, noticing something was under it. Axl watched and was startled by what Zero revealed, who also didn't like what he saw.

On the floor, in a smashed mess was the body of another reploid. It was an older model, and had been in this state for years. The face was damaged, but what would be seen was that it was female, with shoulder length brown hair. Rust attacked what was left of the body, and cables were connected from the back of the old reploid to the table in question. Her eyes were held open, full of blank death and unnerving the other three, even Zero was getting a bit bothered by a reploid carcass being found. However there was something off about it. Sure enough there was something being held in the old reploids hand. Zero took it out, having rust crumble off the hand of the empty body.

"That's…been here awhile…" was all Axl could mutter.

"Clearly…" X finally said, looking away from it. "What did you find Zero…?"

"Some sort of remote or…trigger." He determined.

"Maybe it operates this big transceiver behind us."

Zero looked at the large screen behind them, and pushed one of the buttons on the metal device in his hand. To everyone's amazement, the screen did turn on, despite the large cracks running through the glass. There was a lot of static, and images flashed across the screen with a female voice being cut in and out. To them it looked like it was some sort of security video being played. As it played, the images began to get more and clearer, however there wasn't much to see. The video was looping on itself, which was pretty good for the condition the machinery was in. The three of them watched and soon what was left of the recording finally played.

The images revealed the reploid they found on the floor earlier, only much more alive and well. The lab was the same as this one, also in much better condition. The angle the video was taken in was from a camera in the corner of the room. The table was just out of view and papers were strewn all over the place in a cluttered mess. As the three of them watched this female reploid running around in a mild panic, something moved just out of the direct shot of the camera, seemingly following the woman around. She passed the screen again and to the three's slight amazement, they found Echo wandering around, without armor on, following this unknown reploid. However, there was something slightly different about the reploid raptor, however it could have been the video quality distorting her image, making her look smaller than she really was. There was a sense of paranoia in the air and it was easily noticed that something was wrong in the recording.

"_Not much time…not much…Chrodecho you're going to trip me…"_

Echo in the recording didn't listen, and only kept following the reploid around. She didn't stop pacing around, moving one stack of papers to another spot, putting them in metal boxes or hiding them somewhere else off screen. Echo got her head stuck in a few of the doors but pulled herself out without any problems. The two continued walking around the room frantically until a loud sound in the background made the both of them stop. Neither of them moved until an even louder sound of similar origin was made. At this point the female reploid looked horror stricken, and Echo had a fearful expression on her face. The raptor looked up at the other reploid, who only looked back and seemed to manage a reassuring smile.

"_They can't find you…they can't…" The reploid picked Echo up and put her on what could be seen of the table similar to the one in the room. "I need you to put your armor on and go for a run okay?"_

"_Run…?"_

"_Yes, run. Run and hide."_

"_Fiiiiiiix." Echo whined, a bit cautious about leaving._

"_No, not right now. You need to run and-"_

An explosion in the background cut the reploid off, and the blast from it threw her far across the room with Echo underneath her. From there, there was more static and smoke to prevent anything more from being seen properly. The three of them still heard the other female reploid though, still speaking to Echo.

"…_go run and hide…I'll come find you."_

As the video became more and more distorted, the last thing those three saw was something large looming over the one reploid, before the entire recording cut out. X, Zero and Axl couldn't help but find the large mechanical being all but too familiar.

"That was that giant thing that tried to take Echo earlier wasn't it?"

"I wouldn't forget something that tried to crush X." Zero stated firmly.

Axl turned and looked at another spot in the room, muttering to himself. "I bet you wouldn't…"

"If we can find a hard copy of this and take it back to HQ, we could have it dated. It's odd that it wasn't, as it was clear that reploid was some sort of scientist, the one who made whatever Echo is." Zero continued, ignoring Axl altogether. "You would think a scientist would want things dated if they were being recorded."

"It was just a security camera." Axl commented.

"Whoever that was didn't want Echo to be found, and so, if none of the recordings or information is dated, they seem to not want anything involving her existence to be known." X said. "Also, something doesn't add up."

"What doesn't? It was pretty clear that the big thing from before is after Echo and knows of her." Axl questioned. "The damage on that body matches that kind of damage that thing could do."

"If so…then why is the torso and head hooked up to these cables and whatever this machine is?"

That statement made the other two think for a second. If said reploid was just attacked, why would she have cables running out of her? She had none in the recording they just watched, so why did she have them now? The three of them thought but they couldn't figure out anything plausible to satisfy an answer.

"We'll figure it out. However if more questions keep coming up than answers, this is going to be one long-"

_CRASH_

All three reploids stopped, hearing a sudden movement of metal from outside the small room. Axl quickly grabbed the 'remote' from Zero and pushed as many buttons as he could, making the machine go berserk until some sort of disc popped out. He grabbed it, and quickly followed X and Zero out of the room, who had buster and saber ready for the worst case scenario.

When they found their ways back to the subway tunnels, where the source of the noise was coming from, there was nothing but the dark and poor lighting. However, something was off about that poor lighting.

"Is it just me or is it brighter in here…?"

X took a look around. "I think…I'm not sure."

"If only someone else was a bit brighter."

"This is coming from the guy who needs that extra shine."

"I DARE you to make one more crack-"

_WHOO WHOO_

Zero and Axl stopped their bickering, wondering where in the name of all that wasn't viral that train horn had come from. Their questions were soon answered when one subway car accelerated past the three of them at incredible speeds.

"How the hell is this place working?"

"It shouldn't be!"

It wasn't long before another subway car came their way, only it slowed down as it approached the trio of maverick hunters. In the window, a small head popped up, looking from the left with a pleased grin on her face. X, Axl and Zero couldn't believe what they were seeing.

"Echo?!"

"How did…what…" Zero couldn't figure out what was going on and how it was happening.

As the three of them got into the small car, Echo almost jumped on X happily, giving the blue hunter a hug. X put her down, happy to see that she was alright, though wondering what was going on as well.

"Would you like to explain what's going on?" Zero half asked half demanded.

"Echo fix train. Train faster than Echo. Echo slower than mechannnnniloid. Ech-"

Before Echo could explain, there was another crash coming from behind them. The four of them turned and waited, wondering if it was another haywire subway car going too fast for its own good. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Instead, a heavy galloping could be heard, growing louder and louder. Soon enough, it came into view, with a familiar glowing pair of eyes and a gleaming axe on its forehead.

"Oh damn…" Axl whispered to himself. "We need to get out of here."

"I'm not going anywhere until that thing is unable to even blink!"

"Zero there's no space in here; we need to get into the open area before we even think of engaging that thing!"

"I can handle it!"

"You're going to get yourself killed! AGAIN!"

Before anyone else could throw any more arguments, the car took off like a shot, throwing everyone off balance. X got up and turned, seeing Echo standing on the controls with whatever she had for an arm tool stuck in the middle of things, controlling the car and driving it as fast as she could have it go without tearing it apart.

"I really hope this tunnel leads outside."

"How is letting a god damn dinosaur of a reploid driving an old underground subway car, that she somehow brought back online, to somewhere that is unknown to us, a BETTER OPTION than just fighting this forsaken thing?!"

"It's so much cooler than your option!"

"Axl…I'm ready to show you another cool option I've thought of that doesn't really involve you."


	7. Chapter 7

Between the rattling tracks of the old subway and the thunderous galloping of a rampant mechaniloid out for vengeance behind them, there was very little the trio accompanied by a dino could consider a plausible option. It' armor would take whatever energy their attacks had and throw it back at them, and trying to cave in the ceiling would only result in getting themselves trapped. The mechaniloid was heavily armored as well, so debris falling on it was more of a hazard for them than it was their trailing enemy. What made matters worse, no one knew where they were going and for how long they would be going before they either were crushed by their pursuer or by whatever solid blockade could be coming up at any moment.

However, at the current moment, that didn't seem to all be that much of a problem, as it seemed all the more important the two red and blue hunters argued over which course of action to take, that soon turned into a massive argument over Zero's impulsive, often resulting in a self harming, tactics whereas X was adamant he wasn't going to let Zero get himself nearly killed once again just to complete a daunting task. Axl being caught somewhat in the middle, focused his attention on something a bit more important, that being Echo who was 'driving' the car they were all hurtling down the tracks in.

The navy hunter looked at a small blipping screen just to the right of the robotic dinosaur, who still had her tool very much jammed into the main controls. He knew well enough to know that it was some sort of map, as the blipping light in the middle must have been them and the lines running this way and that in various different colours must have represented the various tracks and lines within the underground tunnels themselves. As he continued to examine the screen, he noticed that there were a few red dots here and there, one of them following their indicator. Axl guessed that red marks were obscurities on the track line, one of them being the giant rampaging mechaniloid behind them. He noted a few on other parts of the map in larger clusters, since they weren't on their direct line of travel and assuming since Echo knew how to hack a subway car and drive it, she knew to stay away from the bright red dots on the map. It seemed the only problem to Axl at the moment was trying to get the other two to stop arguing like an old married couple and to figure out how to stop said mechaniloid.

Axl looked at Zero and X from the other end of the car, only seeing the two of the continue arguing about the usual topics at hand.

Axl turned his head towards Echo casually. "I don't suppose you have any ideas…"

"Echo just drive." She responded with a shrug. "Echo can't go slower because Echo get X, Axl and Zero crushed. Echo can't go fast because Echo get X, Axl and Zero into crash."

"Wait…" Axl needed a moment to process what she was saying. "What do you mean by that…"

The navy reploid took another look at Echo's map again, only this time he poked at it out of slight panic, hoping it would do something. Sure enough, it did, zooming out to get a much larger view of the area. What Axl saw didn't give him any more ease, a there was nothing but a cloud of red dots ahead of them.

"That's what you meant by that…" Axl took a few steps back, knowing that there wasn't a lot of time to think of a plan and they needed to do something. "Hey guys?"

"Going above and beyond expectations does NOT mean your capable limits!"

"A lot of the crap we've been stuck with needs that kind of effort, it's not like I enjoy getting myself beaten all the time!"

"Guys…"

"I never said you did! You don't take your own wellbeing into account the majority of the time you are ever tasked with a mission!"

"My 'wellbeing' isn't a priority concern on a mission, regardless of what the hell we're told to do! It's just my way of doing things based on how bad the situation is!"

Axl sighed and yelled as loud as he possibly could over the bickering two, "HEY! You wanna argue about the chapel colours clashing too or are you two going to FOCUS AND LISTEN FOR A SECOND?!"

X and Zero stopped immediately, looked at Axl, and then looked at each other again for a moment, before returning their attention back to Axl. The navy reploid gave them a second to breathe and see if there were any last minute comments before explaining what was going on.

"Yeah bad situation just got worse. This tunnel comes to and end and Echo can't drive any slower because we're being chased by that thing," Axl referred to the growing-ever-so-more-annoyed machine behind them who was keeping up rather well despite the lack of space. "and Echo can't go any faster to lose it because we're just gonna crash into what might be a welcome wagon so I think we need to just do SOMETHING or we're going to end up compressed scrap either way."

There were far too few times where Zero had he heaviest look of something caught between unamused and 'ready to punch a hole in the wall', whereas X had a slightly dumbfounded gaze of 'you've got to be joking'. X and Zero looked at each other, not saying anything. Returning their gaze back at Axl, all three of them had to think of some idea to save themselves or things weren't going to end well. Annoyed Zero looked back at the giant mechaniloid he wasn't allowed to attack.

"We've gone through every option I can think of and none of them are going to be anything but useless." He nearly growled. "If I was able to _attack_ it-"

Suddenly the entire car lurched forward as if someone had pushed it from behind. X and Zero fell flat on their backs as Axl flew forward so fast he nearly slid out of the open back, only catching himself in the doorway to prevent an unpleasant greeting rom the rapidly moving tracks beneath them. As the three of them got up, they looked back immediately, thinking the beast had caught up with them and ready for a fight. However, to their surprise, the mechaniloid was raging at them from the same distance it had been for the past few minutes. The only other option, Zero then quickly turned his head towards Echo, who was in turn, looking back at them with a nervous apologetic look.

"Echo sorry, Echo had to make car go faster for a bit."

"I thought you said you couldn't go any faster because we're headed for a dead end?" the red reploid snapped quickly.

She whined defensively, lowering her head for being scolded. "Weak floor, if Echo did not go faster, Echo make car fall into floor."

Zero seemed confused for a moment, repeating, "Weak floor?"

The raptor nodded. "Echo saw on map, pink spot need fiiiiix."

"So, wait…part of the tracks were on are ready to fall out from underneath us if we don't go fast enough?"

Echo only nodded to the statement.

Axl threw his arms up in the air. "Okay well, we're doomed."

"No wait." X had a thought, and it was clear on his face that we had a plan. Soon Zero seemed to follow with what he was thinking the more he watched him process the idea in his mind. Axl only stood there, wondering what the two were thinking and how it didn't mean their imminent demise.

"If the floor is weak enough in some spots, and we can tell when they're coming…"

"Then with the right timing, I bet you could shoot the floor out from under that thing and send it crashing down!"

A light bulb went off in the navy hunter's head. "Oh yeah! If we can't attack it directly, we'll just take it down to the next floor!"

"Even if that doesn't stop it, it'll give us time that we need to try and contact HQ and see if we're within range for teleportation."

The plan seemed better than anything else they could think of, even X was enthusiastic about it since it involved indirect damage to the giant robot eying them down, unaware of the dead end they were quickly coming to. The only problem was the speed they were moving, and the few bumps along the way were going to make it difficult to aim properly. A misfire could end up simply missing, hitting the mechaniloid instead and giving it an easy shot, or shooting one wrong spot on the tracks and sending them all crashing down. The three of them didn't have time to formulate another plan so it was going to be now or never.

Zero was making sure this plan of attack was going to work, having details roll around in his mind. "X you're going to have to fire a charged shot at the floor when Echo says to, otherwise you may not take out the floor underneath it."

"It's going to be smart enough to see me in the doorway, I'm not going to have time to move around from behind the frame without more of a chance of it missing." He responded trying to steady himself so he could aim better. "

"I can give you some cover fire and have him look away for a second if I hit him somewhere in the head." Suggested the now eager Axl. "He'll have to glance away and he can't see me from the front of the car."

Zero looked at him with disbelief. "You're going to make a shot from the front where Echo is, through the archway past us, through this doorway and hit THAT in the face?"

"When have my aiming skills ever failed before?" Axl crossed his arms, seemingly offended by such a statement.

"Would you like me to answer that question?"

"No not really." He replied quietly, twirling one of his pistols around on his finger. "Hey Echo is one coming yet?"

The raptor looked away from driving to take a look at her small radar. "Echo see one coming up soon."

"How soon?" X asked.

"Few seconds."

"What?! How many?"

"Nine."

With a few more complaints from Zero about a lack of a warning, X stood readied in the doorway, hoping his buster was going to charge fully in less than nine seconds. Zero had one hand on his shoulder to prevent him from moving back and forth, while Axl stood a few feet back, aiming carefully to avoid hitting anything else other than their pursuer's face. As the tracks rattled by, almost keeping time with everyone's mental countdown, everyone focused, and dared not to speak.

_Eight, seven, six…_

The tension grew almost unbearable, everything becoming almost silent in one's mind.

_Five, four, three…_

X closed his eyes and waited for his signal, the sounds of his charged buster slowly being blocked out by his own focus.

_Two…one…_

"Now!"

Green eyes flashed open and within a second X saw a few shots go by his head from behind, watching them glance off of the mechaniloid's head and forcing him to look just off to the side for a moment. X then let loose a powerful blast of energy, giving him a bit of recoil that was caught by the additional help of Zero. All their pursuer could do was stop for the moment the shot made contact, or rather, shot through the entire track, creating a chain reaction of tremors and cracks to spider web through the concrete and metal. Pieces caved inwards and were blown back by the fore of the shot, slowly failing to resist the grip of gravity. The three of them watched as the car sped up just a bit to avoid falling victim as the mechaniloid did, who tried it's hardest to keep up. Its massive legs and feet only sunk into the cracks like some kind of quicksand, roaring in disdain as it vanished from view with a quaking crash down below.

Everyone breathed easier as their vehicle slowed down, their prehistoric driver jumping down from her post and sitting down with everyone else, watching the back with her head tilted as if waiting for something to happen. X, Zero and Axl sat in the chairs provided, taking a few minutes for a well-earned break.

"Okay…now that that's taken care of…"Axl sighed, stretching out his arms. "…can we please call this a wrap?"

X nodded. "I think it's best we get back and give a report. I agree. I'll see if we're within range of communications to try and get a teleport point from here. HQ this is X…"

"X? Everything alright? You were dead for a while there."

"Yes we're alright as far as things go. We've accomplished our objective, we need a por-"

A powerful shockwave erupted from outside the car, throwing dust and additional debris in every direction. X didn't have time to react, other than shielding himself from the minor blast and coughing out dust. The three of them looked over towards the blast, Echo following suit behind one of the seats. What they all saw was a very large, metal head with glowing amber eyes, and one large set of metal claws digging into the tracks, as if to hold itself up.

"He's BACK?!"

Before Zero could complain about Axl's obvious statement, a high pitched screech was emitted from the machine, forcing everyone to cover their ears or risk going deaf. The screaming lasted for a good thirty seconds before it finally stopped, and the giant robotic being fell back down to the lower levels again. As the others uncovered their ears, they observed him retreating back in the opposite direction. They stared for a while, puzzled as to what that was about.

"He could have taken us down with him, why didn't he?" Zero questioned. "It wasn't like we weren't stunned by that damn sound."

"Maybe he was threatening us in mechaniloid speak?" Axl suggested.

"Even if he was threatening us, he could of done something that loud from down there, we still would have heard it."

X's ears were still ringing, and the first thing he heard was Alia yelling at him, bombarding him with questions about what, who and why. The blue hunter only shook his head, waiting for a moment where he could cut in.

"Alia could you please just get us back, before we have something else to deal with?"

Echo came out from her hiding spot, claws on her head. "Echo head huuurrrrrrt."

X secretly wondered if this was some kind of regular ordeal for the raptor before they had found her. It was obvious her entire discovery at all raised questions about her survivability and how something as peculiar has her, something so unique, was able to go unnoticed for so long. He watched her for a bit as he didn't realize the teleportation, coming to reality with a hard thud on the floor.

Reploids seemed more in number around the transport area, some a bit more panic stricken than others. Zero was already on his feet, giving an open hand to help X up off the floor. He looked up at him with a half-smile, taking his hand and getting back up on his feet. In the room there were other navigators, some of the intelligence staff, and even a few medical reploids along the walls. X wondered why they were here, as he didn't report any major injuries of any kind; though how much of a habit Zero made of pushing himself too far on a regular basis probably made them form a habit of it as well. X was only relieved to be back, if not for a short break. There was still ringing in his ears from the screeching, something that wasn't going to go away for what could be a good half hour. The usual chatter felt far off to him, he didn't even notice Signas trying to speak to him from a few feet away.

"X, did you find anything?" He asked, looking only the slightest bit of concerned.

"Not a lot, just another lab…but it had a very old security recording we managed to salvage…that and…"

"A body of a long gone reploid." Zero finished without missing a beat. "We couldn't identify it, and based on what we could see, it was a very old model, most likely from when we were first coming around. However they were in the footage we found, and are hoping to ID her from that. We think it's Echo's creator."

"Alright then…" Signas trailed off, looking past Zero and X and down towards the floor. "So…that's the… 'Echo'?"

"Yes sir."

"Hmm…significantly…smaller than I imagined…then again no one really stopped talking about her being cute while you were gone."

Zero's cool and collected face went to one of another version of 'not impressed'. X looked at her, seeing she seemed to be recovering quickly. She still seemed a bit nervous of the other people around her, and stuck closely behind X.

"Either way, the research team thinks she's something special."

Both reploids turned their heads. "Special?"

"Yes, in their examination, they found out she wasn't built in a typical fashion as other reploids."

"It's a damn dinosaur…" Zero commented quietly. "I don't think whoever built her would build her normally."

"So does that mean she's maybe similar to Axl?"

As if on cue, the one in question popped up behind them. "Heard my name."

"Have you even been paying attention to the conversation?" Zero asked while glaring at him.

"Sort of, I was giving reploids that thing we found."

"Moving on you two…" X turned back to their commander. "You were going to say?"

"Echo has very…unique and strange systems. As they looked further into her scans, they found that it looked very…anatomically correct."

"Aren't we built that way in comparison to humans?"

"I dunno if they all have masses of hair that may or may not balance them out or have their own center of gravity…" Axl trailed off, realizing not only Zero was glaring at him, but X and Signas were as well. "What…? I'm JUST saying…"

Signas ignored the comment and continued onward. "To a degree you could say that, however with Echo, her systems are said to be as correct as they can be on a _biological_ level."

The three of them looked at each other in surprise. Echo was built to the accuracy of a flesh and blood being? Was such a thing possible? It was odd enough she was carrying around a contained unit of viruses, but the further they were looking into Echo, answers were creating far more questions. There was no way of getting all the answers to Echo's build, not without the creator to talk to, and as far as they were concerned, she was dead. X still wasn't sure how he was going to tell Echo, he couldn't bear to make the small dinoloid upset.

"Maybe if we asked her a few questions she might remember something that could be valuable to this investigation."

"Echo knows."

Out of seemingly nowhere, Echo stuck her head out between X and Zero, looking up at Signas, slightly unsure of his presence. The four of them regained their composure, remaining quiet to let the raptor explain.

"Echo was told Echo was special, Echo was going to be bigger and Echo was growing. Echo get bigger and armor get bigger."

At first it seemed only like she was told she was going to grow in personality and maturity, but since they were all aware of her basic way of speaking, her saying her armor and she was going to get bigger implied one thing: growth. Last time anyone checked, machine did not grow in size, not the way humans did. If what Echo was saying was true, she was outright telling them she had the ability to grow like a human did. The idea seemed benign to everyone in the room, almost something never to be considered for another hundred or so years. If that was the case though, whoever the girl was that made Echo, was a systematic genius.

"Echo not know more. Echo ask but Jazz never tell."

"Wait…you said Jazz?" X quickly asked.

Echo nodded. "Jazz is Echo best friend. Jazz told Echo, Jazz would be back and find Echo after Echo was told to run and hide."

"We could go off of that name, and if we have the analyst team look at the video, we may be able to find something about this 'Jazz person."

"I'll go inform them immediately. You three stand by in the meantime while we figure things out." Signas explained as he turned to leave, only to stop short of the entrance and turn back around. "X, please do tell Alia that you're fine after her decoding frenzy. That screeching earlier put half of headquarters in a state."

X was about to say something, but stopped mid thought. "Wait, you heard that too?"

Axl and Zero also seemed confused. "Yeah, something like that shouldn't have been heard throughout half the building…"

"Somehow it did, and Alia believes there's a cryptic message in it and is frantically decoding it. Please just let her know before she goes into another panic." Signas stated before leaving the room.

X, Zero and Axl looked at each other, not sure what to do with their unknown amount of free time. X looked down, feeling a gaze looking up at him and finding it belonged to Echo. He knelt down to her level, and patted her on the head with a smile. Echo looked at him with a troubled look on her face, as if she did something wrong.

"Jazz told Echo not to tell about Echo. Jazz will be mad…"

X tried to hide his disheartenment with another smile, knowing there was no way of avoiding the subject, and it was better to just try and get it over with. "Echo, I don't think she'll be mad."

"Why Jazz no be mad at Echo for saying?" Echo seemed genuinely confused, tilting her head at X.

"Echo…when we went down the tunnels…well…" X had no idea how to word this carefully, and the silence from the other two wasn't helping. "I think Jazz is gone Echo. She, isn't here anymore."

Echo thought about the answer for a moment, and then, after a minute or two, shook her head. "No, Jazz promise Echo that Jazz find Echo whenever Echo got lost. Jazz never break a promise to Echo. Jazz is just hiding Echo thinks, but having hard time finding Echo because Echo was told to hide."

X only continued to smile a defeated smile, looking down a bit unsure if Echo didn't understand or if she was being persistent in a belief. He stood up, unsure if he should persist and slightly surprised Zero didn't chime in his own few scents about the reality of things. The quiet was soon interrupted by Echo moaning a bit, holding her arms closer to her sides.

"Echo hungry."

X laughed a bit, as did Axl. The navy reploid kneeled down to her, and also patted her head a couple times cheerfully.

"Well why don't I take you downstairs and get some food huh?" He asked her. "Wanna come for a walk with Uncle Axl?"

Zero only put the palm of his hand to his face at the comment, as X would of done if he didn't give out an incredibly unenthusiastic laugh. Echo only looked at Axl, wondering what he meant.

"Axl not Axl? Axl is Uncle Axl?" she tilted her head again, wondering what he meant.

Axl stood up, rubbing the back of his helmet. "Well yes…and yes I guess."

The raptor only frowned. "Echo confused…Axl confuse Echo."

"Anyway, you wanna come with me to get food?"

Echo looked at Axl, then looked at X. "Echo go get food?"

"Yes Echo, you can go, you don't need to ask me."

Axl seemed all the more happier. "Alright I'll race you!"

Before Zero could remove his hand from his face to protest, the two of them were gone from sight and sound. The red reploid only sighed, still looking at the door from which they made their exit.

"If they leave a trail of destruction, I'm not being held responsible." He stated firmly, starting for the door himself as X followed, rolling his eyes.

The hallway outside was relatively quiet; everything seemed their usual norm with everyone doing their own jobs and managing their own tasks. The two of them walked side by side towards the quieter side of HQ where their offices were. There was still a slight bit of tension between then from the argument before. X wasn't sure what to say to Zero, and by the looks of his expression, he seemed a bit annoyed all together.

"She puts a lot of faith in people."

X almost jumped at Zero speaking, looking at him with surprise, and unsure of what he was talking about.

"The dinosaur. Her believing that her creator isn't dead." He continued. "It must take a lot to believe someone isn't gone when the evidence is rather clear otherwise."

X immediately thought of the time he thought Zero was gone, only to show up later. As much as X was glad Zero wasn't dead, there were far too many times where he was borderline dead, had put himself too much into harm's way and pushed himself too hard. It was a constant thing with Zero and it bothered him the most about working with him. X knew however he probably wouldn't have gotten through half of the things he had without Zero, or even Axl or that matter.

"I don't do it on purpose you know." Zero said quietly. "I'd rather see myself get hurt than you or anyone else."

X stopped and gave him a serious look. "I'd rather see you **not** get mauled, beaten, shot at, or torn apart on a regular basis. It's rare to see you come back from a mission without some sort of damage."

"I'm usually a target for that kind of thing anyway. I never use my own buster anymore." Zero defensively said.

X was ready to retaliate, crossing his arms and continuing to give Zero a look. "Never mind the fact Axl can turn invisible, and I know how to use 'cover', you have unmatched skill with your saber, you have no excuse to be blown apart half the time."

Zero looked at X quietly, then around the hallway for a moment. "I suppose you have a point…"

"I know you don't do it for self-glory or personal satisfaction…well, mostly for that latter option, but it would be nice if you tried to get through a mission without much, if any damage for once, please."

Zero looked away with his eyes closed, groaning a bit. "…alright I'll try."

The blonde reploid felt a slight pressure around his torso, only to find X giving him a quick hug with a half reassured look on his face. Zero relaxed and returned it, and couldn't help but smiling himself. He knew X meant well and it wasn't going to kill him to try a little harder to not get himself killed.

"Aww you two made up."

In almost an instant, Zero turned his head sharply, honing in on the exact location of where the voice was coming from. Knowing from the gaze of death he was in trouble, Axl immediately resumed visibility, knowing there was going to be no use for it, gripping an ice cream cone in one hand.

"Oh damn." Was all Axl said before darting down the hall as fast as he possibly could, with Zero chasing him down the hall, intent on causing him harm in some way shape or form.

All X could do was stare down where his two comrades had run, not looking impressed with Axl's actions at all. He noticed Echo, who had also come out of the blue, standing next to him, looking up at him. The blue hunter returned her gaze, and they both resumed looking down the hallway.

"Now if I could only convince Axl to improve his own ability to not get grievously harmed…"


	8. Chapter 8

It had been only but a few days since the subway tunnel adventure. There hadn't been any major events besides some smaller mechaniloids going rogue or maverick, so what relaxing time everyone had, they took advantage of. Between catching up on paperwork and getting used to a robotic dinosaur running around, everything was as it usually was around headquarters. Echo was still avoidant of any research personnel and refused to be examined by them, often dodging through smaller crowds of employees only to vanish a few moments later. X had allowed Echo to stay with him, seeing as the raptor was comfortable around him the most, often sitting in the additional chair in his office or poking around under his desk. Whenever Axl found it convenient to avoid work, he took her around and caused minor mischief, but nothing that had given Signas any reason to grant them any demerit. Zero seemed to avoid or ignore Echo all together, still unsure of what to think of her, and one could say the tiniest bit paranoid of what she did to X before. Even if the medical bay did find what went on before, he was still skeptical. Zero wasn't one to trust easily and until the enigma that was Echo had full light shed on it, he wasn't going to think very much otherwise of her. The blonde hunter was even wondering about the fast found fondness X had for her, but he decided it was just his nature and didn't think of it much. To Signas, he had no idea what to think about it; there was a dinosaur running around his work place.

Today, everyone stood once again in quiet in the briefing room. An old metal factory that was often a spot for somewhat intelligence bearing mavericks to go to in order to have access to forges for armor and to create other weapons. The system itself had been shut down due to viral infections in the systems; things such as bolting guns firing metal bolts in anything but sheet metal, smelters exceeding their heat limit to force a purge of molten material everywhere but a cooling vat, the entire place had been a mess. The three maverick hunters of renown remembered only two weeks ago they were sent in to inspect the place because of reports of unusual activity. A small group of mavericks had tried reactivating the machines for their own benefit, but were unable to do so thanks to their intervention.

"We had reports sent in that there were unusual sounds coming from the factory. We sent in a small scouting team to investigate, but they went silent about half an hour ago. We've tried restabilising the communication line but there has been no response."

Zero, as usual, stood there with his arms crossed paying attention to the given information. "So you just want us to go in, find the scouting party, shut the place back down if it's on?"

"Yes that is the objective."

The three of them turned, seeing Signas walk into the room just at the end of the briefing. Looking up at their commander, Zero was the first to question his presence.

"Is there something else we need to know about this mission sir?"

"No there's nothing special that you three need to be aware of." Signas answered, looking at the disappointed Axl from the corner of his eye, seemingly defeated by his answer. "However there is one request I have."

Now X was even curious about this request. "Yes sir?"

"Take Echo with you this time."

Zero was surprised by this request in truth, though kept it to himself as far as expressions went. X shared his feeling though, wondering why they were being asked to specifically bring Echo this time when they were only revisiting a location they had been previously. Axl on the other hand, seemed very happy about it, and quietly cheered to himself in the background.

"I'm a bit confused sir." X stated. "Does this have something to do with more possible information being found there?"

"No, Alia is still working on cracking into that odd message that was blasted through your communications a few days ago. I want her being taken for safety measures."

Zero was now a bit disgruntled by Signas's statement, taking a step forward to make his thoughts known.

"With all due respect sir, this is an area we're quite familiar with, I don't think it's necessary to bring her along as a safety measure."

"As true as that is, there are other areas that have had to be revisited due to repeatedly being targeted by mavericks, and you are one to still come back with some degree of damage to yourself." Signas flatly replied to the somewhat annoyed hunter. "Aside from that, she is intended to be a safety measure more so for the factory than you three. In the one report that was the most completed, X you said that she somehow repaired a system to the subway, and when you initially found her, she was trying to fix an older computer, however shut it down on your command."

It was slowly becoming apparent to X as to why Echo was being brought along, and it showed in the tone of his voice when he answered, "Yes sir. She did manage that all herself."

"Then there's the other fact that…Echo refuses to let any of our research team so much as get close to her. Giving her some field work might narrow down what she was actually designed for. The two systems and repairing bugged… bugs, only give us a broad speculation that goes into the impossible." The commander finished, beginning to turn and leave the room. "Those are your orders for today."

As Signas had gone, X could hear Zero muttering to himself while Axl was still being obliviously gleeful in the background. The blue hunter didn't like the idea of field testing Echo, but he didn't like it as much as others would have guessed. At least the odd raptor reploid would be out there where he could keep track of her, and something like a factory was difficult for that larger rogue mechaniloid that seemed to be following them, to get in to. Once everyone had left the room, they knew there was only a small amount of time to find Echo and fill her in.

"Well we better go find her, instructions are instructions."

"A bit ridiculous for instructions if you ask me." Zero complained bitterly.

Axl threw his arms behind his head, looking up in the ceiling in thought. "I wonder if he just doesn't want to be responsible for having her run around by herself…"

"I wouldn't be surprised…" the blonde hunter grumbled to himself. "Rebriefing a tag along is a waste of time, and we're going to have to rephrase it for her-"

"No need she's been hiding under the desk back here."

X and Zero turned around, seeing Axl kneeling down, uncovering what was Echo's hiding spot. She poked her head out, stretching as she stood up straight. The dinoloid took a few steps forward, as if she were wary of someone spotting her. The blue and red reploids only looked at her, X shaking his head in slight amusement while Zero only muttered other complaints out of audible comprehension. As Echo walked up to X, she looked at Zero with a confused look, tilting her head at him cutely. She then looked at X with a curious stare.

"Zero okay?"

Before X could answer, Zero sighed loudly. "I'm fine, can we get this done and over with?"

X was a bit happy that Echo had snuck herself into the room earlier, hiding herself from everyone else until they were all gone. He followed Zero out the door and to the transfer room, Axl restraining himself from skipping down the hall as they went. "Zero you've got nothing to complain about now, get over it."

"Says the reploid who's still keeping a bit of distance."

Axl frowned at him, remembering Zero still hadn't gotten him back for this make up comment days before. The navy hunter knew he would be safe from the blonde's wrath on a mission, since Zero wanted to get it done as fast as possible, especially now that Echo was forced on them. Calling her a safety precaution of any kind seemed to poke at Zero's pride too, but there wasn't anything he could do about that. Orders were orders.

The three of then entered the transfer room, operators preparing the proper coordinates of which to teleport them too. As usual they nodded to the three of them, a female reploid giving each of them a nod. When Echo walked by, she jumped a bit out of surprise, watching the small raptor walk just behind X.

"Uh…I thought it was just the three of you on this mission?" She inquired, slowly turning back to her controls.

Zero almost growled at the question. "So did I."

X and Axl just rolled their eyes at him as they waited for teleportation.

The three, now four of them were transported just before the old metal work and weapons factory. Smoldering ash vented out of long pipes reaching out to the sky and was clearly beginning to block out some of the sun, thanks to the density of the gases. The entire building was black and grey thanks to previous battles, leaving no colour whatsoever on the repeatedly abandoned facility. Upon a first look, there was no sign of any recent struggle, or really, much of a force of entry. The doors to the factory were unlocked, letting the three maverick hunters and their new reptilian side kick in with ease. Once the door was shut behind them, it was plain to see, or rather, feel that there was definitely smelting going on.

The level of heat within the building was tremendous, easily distorting their view by just a tiny bit as the heat emanated off of metal, concrete, just about everything else in the building. Echo even backed up a few steps, taken off guard by the unexpected temperature. Large vats of liquid metal followed a rail in small groups of three or five, hanging by a powerful magnetic current and pouring their contents into much larger containers. Furnaces blazed at them from the inside and out, forcing impurities out if not burning them to gaseous oblivion. Long steel catwalks stretched from one end of the room to the other, some with stairs ascending and descending into the other levels of the factory. The outside didn't show how large the place in question truly was, as the underground levels stretched farther than the structure was high. The walkways continued to crisscross themselves over what seemed to be an open pit of manufacturing; steam and smoke, fumes and gases rose in varying intensities here and there as they were sucked up towards the ceiling. Above their heads a large and complex ventilation system filtered out anything harmful that it could, however there seemed to be a problem; the filter system wasn't working and parts of it had such a buildup of ash that it was melting parts of the machines shut.

"If I didn't know any better I'd say this place has been in overdrive."

X examined the ceiling. "That's not a good sign. Someone who has this place in operation doesn't seem to know how to run it."

"Or they don't want it run again afterwards."

"That seems a bit of an odd objective Zero…"

"Echo fix?"

"No Echo, that's not what we're here for." X explained to her. "We're looking for other Maverick Hunters. If we need to find something to fix, we'll let you know."

"Maybe she could start with Zero's mood?"

Axl ducked underneath Zero's swing, aiming for his head as he groaned and walked forward on the catwalk. X rolled his eyes at the both of them while he figured the best way for them to begin looking for the missing personnel was to split up. He instructed Axl and Echo to go check the floors above them, while he and Zero went to check the ones below. The raptor seemed a bit disappointed she couldn't go with X and Zero, but Axl's optimism distracted her for the time being. The four of them looked slowly and with care. Their navigators would inform them the second there was an influx of maverick activity, and so far, everything was quiet. The factory breathed heavy pressured sighs as cranes shifted vats of molten metal from station to station. Molds stamped shapes into amber slabs as a conveyor belt carried them farther away into processing. Zero and X walked over the large open pit that seemed to be a maze of catwalks, wondering how long it was going to take them to get down to the lowest floor where it would be safe to search the other rooms. Normally they would have just jumped down, but the multiple open smelters and uncertainty of the structural integrity of the building made them have second thoughts about it.

"I'm beginning to wonder if this place had ever heard of a lift or an elevator." Zero complained to himself. "This heat is starting to bother me."

"You decided to go down this way." X countered. "That's no one's fault but you. Besides, that doesn't seem to be the only thing bothering you."

Zero only grunted and didn't answer. He turned down towards one of the stairs, quickly descending them as his partner followed him. The clinking of their armor on the metal constructs was becoming less and less audible as the rumbling of flames and the distortion of heat waves was becoming ever thicker. X knew Zero wanted to avoid the question, but he wasn't' going to allow him to this time; not while things were quiet.

"You obviously have a problem with Echo." X stated, quickly moving on before Zero could even let words come out of his now open mouth. "You couldn't make it any less obvious than you getting a haircut."

Zero groaned, bordering a growl once again. "I still don't trust what that thing does, nor do I trust it."

"The 'it' saved us once, and repaired me when she didn't have to." Protested the blue Maverick Hunter. "You can't trust her, fine, but can you trust me with my judgement? Is that too hard for you to do?"

The question stopped Zero in his hurried walk. He was quiet for a moment, letting a slow sigh out as he let his arms drop down to his side. The blonde turned around, looking at X with a serious glance. The few seconds it took for him to begin to say something seemed to draw on for minutes.

"X-"

_CSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… "Processing complete. Finalization required in Branch Omega, Tango, 4."_

The overhead speakers caught the two of them off guard, both looking around for any sign of movement, hoping there was something for the two of them to go on. What they heard next, was entirely surprising.

"_Finalization Confirmed. Resuming processing."_

There was someone in here, operating the factory. The two of them weren't sure if it was who they were looking for, or someone they didn't want to find. Hopefully, it was going to be the sooner, and not the later, or even worse; both. X moved his hand to start a communications link with Axl, only to hear his voice inside his helmet before he could get to it.

"_You guys heard that too right?"_

"Yes we did." X replied. "I don't suppose you found anything up there to find out where this branch is?"

"_Actually Echo and I found some sort of control room up here. Seems to have a map of the facility and I had no idea this place was so huge-"_

"Can you tell us where said area is?" Zero snapped at him, getting slightly impatient.

"_Sheesh someone is grumpy."_ Axl scoffed at him. _"Yeah the processing finishes off in the lowest floor out on the west side… wait aren't your navigators supposed to be telling you where to go and not me?"_

"You already beat them too it."

"Thanks Axl, see if you can shut things down from up there." X commanded. "Maybe see if Echo can make it shut down."

"_We'll see what we can do."_

X and Zero ran down the walkway as fast as they could, soon able to find signs that gave them direction to the processing branch they were looking for. The heat from the machines working, to the molten metal was incredibly stifling, making it hard for the two of them to see straight. Each of them took to a side of a hallway they had found, throwing open doors and calling out for the missing scouting team. There was still no one, or even anything of them to be found. X was starting to worry as each passing second went by, while Zero grew all the more frustrated. It wasn't long before their rush was stopped by a large metal door that had the characters 'OT-4' engraved into the front of it. On either side was a button panel that had a green light glaring both of them in the face. Zero pressed the largest key on the pad, figuring that it would open the door. Both of them cautiously took to either side, letting the door come completely open before looking inside.

Inside, there appeared to be nothing but fully operational machines. Upon further inspection, there appeared slow movement from the right side. Zero instinctively put his hand on his saber while X had a hand on his buster. Neither of them moved as what moved slowly came around the corner. To their surprise, it was not a Maverick Hunter, but instead, a serpentine reploid. On a spherical mount was a pair of arms in black armor and crimson trim, complete with a set of four triangular claws to operate as simple fingers. The head was a large triangular shape, curving downwards with a white plate of armor separating another larger black one that separated to two directions behind the head. Under these was a large tub that curled off to the left or right side, ending just above the reploids shoulders in a pale red colour, with black spot lining the back of it. It seemed to imitate the appearance of some kind of cobra. His entire lower half comprised of rounded, rectangular sections with curved metal plates on the front with metal beads in it, and circular dark grey plating with exhaust pipes coming out of either side. Each section was held together by dark red pieces, and the end of the 'tail' was a black triangular metal piece.

Neither of them moved quickly, as it seemed this strange reploid wasn't hostile, but instead, examining X and Zero with his red glassy eyes. "Maverick… hunters?"

Zero didn't respond immediately. "Yeah."

After the last time, Zero expected an attack. To both of their surprise, the reploid only stood there, looking from X to Zero. The blue hunter was beginning to lower his buster, and even withdrew it completely.

"I sent for you." He said, in a voice that was heavy and low, and absent of a lisp commonly stereotyped with those that were snakelike. "There were strange sounds coming from above, but there are absent now. I discovered the problem and sent them away. Did they send for additional assistance of another issue they discovered?"

"Whoever came here before us, we don't have contact with anymore." X explained, slightly unnerved by the appearance of this reploid.

"I don't suppose you know where they are?" Zero asked sternly, not giving this strange mechanical oddity an inch.

"I know where they went." He responded calmly, either ignorant or purposely ignoring Zero's accusing tone. "The heat can cause many problems. Communication included. You might have heard static if you have used your communications inside the facility."

Now that X thought about it, he did remember hearing some static as he spoke to Axl about the announcement, and where to go. Zero had to admit he remembered hearing the same thing too. Also, what Axl said earlier was starting to make him wonder; why hadn't their navigators informed them of where to go as soon as that announcement had finished? Usually they were incredibly well timed with that kind of thing.

"Follow me." The reploid instructed, motioning his hand towards himself.

Zero and X cautiously followed behind the serpent as he moved his tail left and right to slowly move himself forward. He had both of his arms behind his back, claws folded together as neatly as the simplistic design would allow him to. Zero kept watching for any sign of a trap, making sure X was right at his back the entire time they were lead up one of the lowest catwalks that loomed just over one of the largest cauldrons of smoldering liquid ore. The pace at which the armed snake was moving was both unsettling, and draining, as being exposed to such heat was starting to wear on Zero's patience. Even X was starting to feel uncomfortable in the increased temperature. As he continued to walk, something about this entire situation just seemed off. He just knew it, and he had to find out what it was.

"What exactly… are you doing here?"

The stranger did not pause in his slithering, remaining facing forward the entire time. "I create; recycle from the old to create new. I work here, as I was instructed to."

"This place was abandoned… how long have you been here?"

"I do not recall. Time can be trivial, even meaningless when you pursue something."

Zero was off put by the answer. "What exactly are you pursuing?"

"Answers, solutions, resolution, resolve. It has many names." He answered again. "I have completed my pursuit here, and I will vacate this factory in favor of neglect. However, nothing is ever left as it was found, as this place will be."

Zero stopped, forcing X to stop behind him. "Care to explain that?"

"So many questions, but it would be rude of me not to answer them." The serpent turned around, stopping in the centre of the catwalk to face the two of them. "But first, we are where you requested to be."

Zero and X looked around, noticing they weren't anywhere different from where they had already been. Zero replaced his hand on the handle of his saber, knowing something was up. "What exactly are you trying to pull, this isn't anywhere!"

"And I thought you Maverick Hunters were ever so observant." He exclaimed, turning his body right around and posing himself up straight.

X only took a moment to think of what he was getting at, realizing there was only one place the scouting party could have gone. The realization was clear on his face as he readied his buster in an instant, pointing it at the reploid in front of him and Zero.

"You liar, you never sent for our help, you only killed the ones who came here and used it as a cover up!"

"Lie? How dare you. I, Burnout Naga, do not lie." The now named reploid hissed at the two of them. "I did send for the Maverick Hunters, and I did send them away when I discovered the issue to my dilemma. I had not enough material to create what I was sent for. My pursuit would not be complete without your contribution. I took you to where they were sent."

Zero drew his saber, ready for a fight. "Typical maverick. Why don't you tell us what Sigma is up to this time so we can get on with our lives?"

"Sigma?" Burnout questioned. "I don't recall working for a letter of the Greek alphabet. Maverick? Are you aware of the definition of the word? One who speaks out of the norm, a free will, an individualist who pursues other ideas, ideals and or politics. The irony as those of yourselves can be seen as mavericks, yet you hunt them."

"We don't have time for your mind games." Zero retorted. "And don't tell me you aren't with Sigma and play dumb."

"I told you, I do not lie." The naga told him firmly. "What I speak is no lie either, for the truth is all but subjection. By your standards, and your 'truth' then a maverick is what I am. No amount of trivial, philosophical arguing will change your mind it appears. I will not entertain the idea of conversing any longer, and nor do I wish to enact in violent action. It will just waste energy when the end result will be the same."

Burnout Naga turned to leave, his body slowly turning around with his back to Zero and X. Zero had finally reached the end of his patience, dashing forward towards their clear enemy. "You aren't leaving the way you came in!"

Before X even had time to blink, he heard a snapping of metal, and such a fast shift on the walkway he flinched for just a second. Zero was even stunned, as he found himself not with a saber in the back of the snake, but instead, his wrist being nearly crushed in the grip of his foe. Not only that, but he was being lifted a foot or so off of the ground. X raised his buster quickly to fire, but found his line of sight blocked by Zero's body being suspended between himself and Burnout.

"You don't listen very well. I said I was going to leave. I do not _lie_."

Zero knew X couldn't hit him, and probably wasn't going to fire his buster because he was in the way no matter how much he may have protested. He still had his one free arm, and was so close to his target, he might have been able to pull this off if done just right. Zero raised his other arm, using his incredibly unused buster. A charge began to form quickly where a hand used to be, and just as he was about to release a shot, something much heavier threw off his aim, leaving the shot to fire offside of his target, and at another piece of machinery that was in use. Zero looked at his buster arm, finding it completely wrapped in the coils of Burnout with the exhausts facing his plating.

"I can't allow you a second chance at that now can I?" The exhausts came to life with flames; blasting Zero's arm with such heat it began to melt the very armor itself.

Zero tried to fight back the searing pain, but the agonizing sound being muffled by will power was still audible. X frustratingly tried to find a good shot, as there was nowhere else to go on the walkway. Burnout kept moving Zero in the way of any possible shot, and it tore the blue hunter up inside to have such a thing happening again. X desperately aimed his buster in every angle, the humming from the charge starting to drown out his own angry thoughts. Then, he saw it. The tailpiece that held Zero was exposed to his shot.

Burnout knew he saw it as well. As X released his charge, the maverick ceased smoldering Zero's limb, spinning around to avoid the powerful blast that was being aimed while still holding Zero with one arm. Upon coming full circle, he released the red hunter to X's surprise, unable to avoid having Zero's body collide with his own. The pair of them hit the metal railing, almost falling through it while they regained their footing. Burnout wasn't going to give them any time to check up on each other, as he took his massive tail and struck the catwalk so hard, it ripped the metal in half. Each end landed in the vat of glowing liquid below, hissing as it began to melt the walkway. Blaring sirens could be heard as warnings about the systems having anomalies, failures and evacuation protocols started to fill their ears. The pair of them slid down a ways until Zero felt hot liquid metal splash against the side of his foot, causing him to yell out in pain. X tried pulling Zero up with him while aiming at Burnout at the same time so they weren't attacked in the process of trying to recover. The serpentine maverick laughed, while backing up away from X and Zero. Then, to X's surprise, he managed to vault his heavy body upwards with a flash of yellow and white flames, and onto the next catwalk. X continued to blast at where he thought he was without the aim of his other arm, but they were off centre. It was clear Burnout wasn't coming for them, but instead heading for the top of the facility. X took the opportunity to concentrate on just pulling himself, and Zero onto a much more stable platform.

Upstairs, Axl was trying everything he could to try to get the computers to shut down their processes while Echo dug around in the wiring and hardware of the computer, as if she was looking for something specific. The blaring sirens were putting more pressure on them and Echo often commented about the heat making her feel "sick" or "unwell". The younger hunter was getting more and more agitated, especially now that there seemed to be an evacuation notice going through the speakers.

"Come on, there has to be something we're missing." Axl grumbled to himself. "Everything has a shut of switch… or a self-destruct button for some odd reason. Echo, don't push any large suspicious buttons until you run them by me."

"Echo will tell Axl of any big buttons that look susp..susspisshhh…ussss." The raptor reploid repeated. "Echo need to find plug in, but Echo no find it. Echo can't fix if Echo can't find it."

"What kind of plug in?" Axl asked her. "How exactly do you fix it?"

"You does not fix it, Echo fixes it."

"Yeah, how do you fix it?"

"Who is You? Echo is not You. Echo is Echo."

The pair of them stared at each other for a moment while Axl knew this was going to go around in circles. "… kay so how does Echo fix it?"

Echo seemed unsure of how to respond other than the only explanation she seemed to give for everything regarding what she actually did. "Echo fix and make better. Echo was told that is how Echo works. Echo didn't get big long ex..plaaannashuun of how Echo worke-"

An explosion stopped the both of them as well as the whining of bending metal, followed by more crashing. Axl stormed out onto another catwalk while Echo remained inside the doorway, wondering what was going on. Axl looked down and saw a red and blue blur down below and something in black with red, moving up the catwalks as the blue blur fired shots at the black one.

"Well that doesn't look good. Echo, you're really going to have to find a way to shut this place off." Axl said, pulling out one of his pistols while trying to radio in X and Zero. "Are you two okay?"

X had Zero's half melted arm over his shoulder while he tried to carry him along the slowly melting walkways, and stop Burnout from escaping at the same time. The heat was causing static in the radio waves and he had only barely heard Axl's voice inside his helmet before stopping to respond.

"Axl we have a maverick heading up to the top floors to escape. He's already caused Zero severe heat damage and he can't walk without assistance. I can't get a clear shot of him because I can't aim properly." X explained. "Can you try to slow him down from up top?"

"_Wow already? Sounds like a new record for out blonde punching bag-"_

"AXL."

"_Yes yes I'm already on it."_

"He can move fast for a giant, metal tank snake humanoid thing… so be careful." Zero told him. "And I could walk if you'd let me try X."

"Your foot is partially melted, and so is your arm. I'm not letting you try so you can make it worse." The hunter sternly told him. "I'm carrying you up there to safety."

"You're carrying me toward a damn maverick, you're going slowly and would be going much faster if you just left me! Never mind you could have probably hit him by now and we could all go back home!"

"I am not sitting you down to go out in a blaze of sacrificial glory! …AGAIN!"

"You can just set me down for a bit and come back! I never said about dying for the sake of our lives!"

X continued to argue with him as he was not half dragging his partner along the metal walkway. "We've worked together for how long and you've said that _how_ many times and it's still happened _how_ many times?"

"That's clear proof that I have a hidden personal agenda that's just in the back of my head telling me 'oh right, I was scheduled for martyrdom today for the sake of human and reploid kind!' We talked about this a few days ago, why are you bringing it up again?"

"I didn't bring it up!"

"Yes you did!"

"No I-"

"_Hey, before you guys fight over what colours are going to clash at your ceremony in the future so you can legitimately argue like the old married couple you're portraying, here's a really crazy suggestion: Zero, why don't you just help X aim his buster with your remaining good arm while X, can carry Zero at __**the same time**__, and everyone can be happy and we can all hopefully not die?"_

"…"

"…"

"_Yeah you guys kind of forgot to turn communications off."_

"_Echo heard too."_

There was another quiet pause.

"Right… good idea Axl." X told him."

X and Zero ceased their bickering and took a moment to catch more ground before attempting to assist Axl with slowing Burnout down.

Axl was trying to aim from the edge of the catwalk, keeping to the element of surprise as Burnout didn't seem to know he was their yet. Aiming both pistols carefully, he was waiting for just the right moment to aim a piercing shot through one of the catwalks to send Burnout a one way trip to liquid metal therapy. Echo was inside the control room, only how having pulled the covering panes off of the entire computer by ripping them open with her large reptilian armored claws. Her left arm became the unusual tool once again and started scanning for the plug in of which she spoke of earlier. She was starting to grow more worried the longer she took to find it.

Axl was watching Burnout carefully as he rose between the walkways, being more careful now that X's aim suddenly improved all of a sudden and Axl couldn't have imagined what could have possibly happened to have such a thing change so quickly. The seconds felt like minutes, as Axl had to make sure that he wasn't going to cut X and Zero off either. He calculated that the maverick could jump well enough, but if you couldn't jump without anything underneath you, then you were stuck. The navy reploid had the shot lined up, he only needed to wait for the target to get between point A and point B.

Two more catwalks to go.

One more left as the last one was torn to pieces in his trail…

Two more feet…

Fire.

Axl pulled both triggers of his pistols, almost simultaneously. One shot tore just ahead of the path Burnout wanted to take while the second one followed closely after, tearing through the metal behind him. Burnout Naga's weight did the rest, causing the support to fall beneath him, and crash into the worn ones below. He had nothing to reach for to stop his fall, only the pit of liquid metal below where his body and the remains of his walkway splashed into with a bright, golden wave. Part of the walkway took a bit to melt into the rest of the vat, while the mavericks body was completely gone as soon as he made impact. X and Zero watched as they confirmed that Burnout was not coming back out. X sighed some relief as he continued to take Zero up the rest of the way.

"Thanks for that Axl."

"_It's what I'm here for." He replied smugly. "Now you two get up here, that is unless Zero wants to try out the new sauna."_

"You aren't funny."

"_Uh huh." _Axl ignored him for the time being._ "Echo can't fix the place until she finds some plug in thing, so eight eyes are better than four."_

The pair of them were slightly confused, though part of this mission was to see what Echo actually did. It took X a few minutes to get about halfway up with Zero, who decided to try and hobble to save what dignity he had left from being turned into a metal popsicle. They were both silent for the entire walk up, not even making much eye contact with each other. Echo continued to look, now tearing up the walls, frantic and determined to find what she was looking for to fix the factory's systems. The screaming sirens were starting to get on her nerves as well, and she wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

"Echo found it!"

Axl came running in, almost tripping on all the metal strewn about the floor. "Awesome Echo, can you turn it off?"

"Echo fix, or try to fix. Echo not used to fixing old, not moving broken things."

"Okay… like before?"

"Before? Axl mean Echo train car?"

"Yeah that."

"Echo fix easy because Echo fix easy fix." She said, almost slightly disappointed by it being something simple to fix. "Echo fix this now."

Echo stuck her tool into a data port and her tool lit up. The screen turned on and numerous windows open and closed, cascaded down the screen and closed themselves after numerous alphanumeric characters spelled out gibberish. It looked as if it were code, code that was being scanned for something in particular. Echo didn't remove her tool until at least three parts of the code were removed from the system, and replaced with other coding. From there she removed her arm, having it turn back into a set of claws, and let the computers shut down.

X and Zero paused when they heard everything quiet down, enjoying the silence for a change. They were near the top when lights began to dim, believing Echo had shut the place down.

Then, red lights started flashing in circles. A siren came back on again.

X turned on his communications again. "Axl…"

Axl turned to the dinosaur. "Echo…"

"Echo fix it!" She proclaimed in her defense. "Echo fix, but Echo think computer says something wrong somewhere! Echo did fix!"

Axl looked at the computer, and indeed it was saying there was something wrong. There was a high amount of pressure in one of the smelters and Axl couldn't figure out where that one was. X and Zero down below weren't getting an answer from Axl right away, so figured the faster they got up there, the better. As they were just about to get up to the last few sets of stairs, they heard an eruption of metal being torn apart, and fluid fire being set ablaze in all directions. Looking down, something had cracked one of the vats, causing its insides to spill out everywhere, and create a string of explosions that domino effected into a slowly rising tide of disaster. X, Zero and not Axl turned to watch down below, as a flaming sphere shaped object ricocheted off of objects, spinning molten metal in all directions. Orange shone off the object as it turned from its sphere shape, to a long serpentine one, shoving metal claws into the wall to stop it from falling.

"What?!"

"How can something survive being immersed in molten metal?"

"That's not cool." Axl said, not realizing he had just made a pun and received a glare from X and Zero as a result. "That one wasn't on purpose I swear."

Echo even peaked out from the doorway of the control room to see what was going on, but didn't make herself be known. All of them could hear Burnout Naga's laughing as he slid down to a long platform that ran against the wall, but not within reach of any other catwalk that he could use to escape the increasing level of molten spillage he had caused down below.

"So he's basically stuck there." Axl observed, pulling out his pistols again. "All I need to do is make one long range shot and-"

Before Axl could respond, Burnout took a good sprint, or slither considering his lower half was serpentine, and launched himself at the nearby wall, leaning backwards so that the end of his tail reach the top of his head, and turning his arms inwards towards his body. They couldn't see it from the distance they were at, but the circular beads in Burnout's armor that allowed him to move so quickly, were molded into spikes under intense heat. The exhausts on both sides completely circled the newly formed Burnout Naga, as he took on the form of a spiked wheel, and with flaming exhausts, started to roll up the side of the factory itself.

Everyone stared for a moment, Axl in the most disbelief. "Okay no, that's just cheating."

Axl and X didn't hesitate to open fire on Burnout, who was able to avoid the majority of the shots, and glance off the others. Zero angrily watched, unable to do anything since his aim was terrible from not using his buster for so many years, never mind his other arm to help steady it was overheated from being melted partially, as well as the rest of his systems. Burnout got closer and closer to the top, nearing the ceiling as he aimed himself towards the air exhausts that were smoldered from the heat and gases. By now all of them could hear him laughing and with one quick turn, he was right on top of them. The three of them moved to avoid being run over by a flaming reptilian wheel, only to find he used that momentum to bounce up into the giant fan's above their heads. He tore through the fan blades and bounced through the vent, ripping open the top and escaping with a triumphant cackle. Shrapnel and metal shot out of the vent like bullets, ripping whatever they ran into apart as well as the adjacent vent next to it. The air pressure rapidly changed and there was a large updraft from underneath the four of them. They had to hold onto what remained of the railing or run the risk of being sucked into a self-made shredder thanks to Burnout. Everyone checked each other over before even attempting to move. X checked on Zero a second time over, giving him a look as a result of what he saw.

Zero was entirely confused as to why X was giving him an unamused stare. "What?"

X cleared his throat, and gave him a moment before speaking. "Really?"

Zero had to think for a moment, before he realized his good hand was on the back of his helmet, around his ponytail. Zero moved his hand away from it and grabbed onto and held onto the railing. "I've had a long day don't even start."

"Echo can't move or Echo get stuck in the broken vent." Echo told them, clinging to the metal railing for dear life.

Axl reached out with his hand to her, and grabbed onto her arm. "Come on, you won't blow away if I'm holding onto you."

"The air pressure in here must be far different from outside, we need to get out of here before that ceiling collapses on us."

"We should be able to get to the door from here." X pointed towards the way they came in. "If we can just get over there before the rest of this rips away under our feet…"

Everyone moved slowly enough to avoid being pulled away by the fans, but fast enough to move towards the door at a decent pace. X would have shot the fans out, but the fact the ceiling was becoming less and less sturdy. Alia nor any of the other navigators were responding to their communication links, meaning Burnout probably had something to do with jamming those as well. It was only a minute later that the four of them reached the door. X began to try to open the heavy gate doors, but they weren't responding.

"I can't get it open!"

"I think Burnout doesn't want us leaving."

Upon further examination of the door, there was obvious proof the entire thing had been melted shut by an outside source. Getting angry, Zero drew his saber with his one good arm, and started hacking away at the door, knowing there was a good three feet of blast resistant armor to cut through. Doing heavy attacks with one arm wasn't working, and even Axl's piercing shots were only going so far in. X joined in with his buster, but the smoldering mess was being rather difficult to contend with. All the while, everyone's systems were starting to overheat terribly, or in Zero's case, reaching higher levels than what they already were. X thought a charged shot would break it down, and instructed everyone to take a step back to avoid splash damage.

"That should be far enough." X said as he had Zero sit farther away with Axl and Echo in front of him.

"X have you been charging your buster already?"

"No, I haven't yet, I had to move you first."

"Then…" Axl thought out loud. "Why do I hear humming…?"

X stopped to listen, and there was humming coming from somewhere. The location of it was soon answered when the door they were trying to break down all of a sudden lurched forward, as if someone had just ran into it from the other side. X ducked down, wondering what it was, and covered himself when the second hit sent the doors flying to his right side, giving them a clear way out of the building. Everyone ran for the door, with Axl holding onto Echo and X dragging Zero with him. The small lobby area they had come through was completely torn open by a foreign blast of energy, leaving them a large enough hole to slide down the side of the building, and back into the much safer outside. Once they hit the ground, they saw an all too familiar sight ahead of them, watching them as it turned to leave in the opposite direction.

"That's that mechaniloid that tried to take Echo before!"

"Grr… I'd go after it right now-"

X cut him off sharply. "The only thing you're going after is repairs."

"…_zzttcsssh… X… cation….there…are…you there?"_

"Alia?" X questioned. "Alia is that you?"

"_Yes! Thank god I've been trying to contact you since you went in but everything we tried wasn't working! Are you alright? Can anyone else hear their navigators?"_

"Yeah I can hear Layer just fine." Zero anwered.

Axl almost cringed when he heard freaking out on the other side of his communications. "Yeah I can, but at this rate I won't be able to hear anything."

"Alia, we had a run in with Avery strange maverick, are you able to track him down?" X asked her. "We also made visual contact with the viral mechaniloid from before and need a race on that."

"_I can try to track down the one maverick signal… but that's the only signal I have."_ The navigator informed him. _"I don't have that same signal from that mechaniloid on my radar anywhere you are right now."_

"What? That can't be right, I just saw it disappear into more of the abandoned parts of this sector!"

"_I'm not sure what to tell you, but if you're sure it's that same one, I'm not getting any signals from it that matches our earlier analysis at all."_

They all stood there, a bit in disbelief. Suddenly a maverick mechaniloid didn't have the signal that said it was a maverick anymore? That just wasn't possible to them, and they had already identified that model as a model of its own kind. There were no other copies of it in any known databases they had. First a cryptic maverick that wasn't intent on finishing X and Zero off when he had the chance, and now a mechaniloid suddenly was just a normal mechaniloid that suddenly helped them escape?

Just what was going on?

* * *

><p>Author Note:<p>

_AHAHAHAHA I LIIIIIIIIIIVE! _

_No, this fan fic is NOT DEAD and I will not allow it to DIE. It's almost 4am at the time of this upload and yeah. Life kind of sucked awhile for me and then when I got around to writing this one, my brain gets writers block and artists block at the same time. It would not allow me to write about Burnout Naga until he had a design, then a proper one, then, it had to make sense regarding some form of MMX physics. THEN finding time to finish off the chapter and augh IhateBurnoutsomuuuuuch._

_I made this chapter the longest one yet for such a long wait. I won't make it a whole year next time I update. _

_THANK YOU FOR THE READER WHO WROTE THAR REVIEW A FEW MONTHS AGO WONDERING WHERE I WENT. THAT MEANT A LOT TO ME. _


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